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Project dashboards

Project dashboard examples

Two project dashboards and one review deck, each shown as it actually renders on a sample dataset rather than as a mock-up. If you are looking for project management dashboard examples to copy the thinking from, these state the question each one answers and the columns your data needs before it will bind.
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In short

What a project dashboard is

A project dashboard is a single screen showing where the work has got to and what is at risk of missing its date. The formats that earn a second look separate two things a status report usually blurs: how much is done, and how much it has cost to get there. Percent complete on its own says nothing about whether the budget survived it. The two below are a status view and a portfolio view, and the same numbers become a steering deck further down.

Project dashboard examples: each dashboard, the question it answers, and the numbers on it.
Project StatusWhat is actually stuck, before the status meeting starts?Percent Complete, Actual Hours, Budget, Cost Variance
Project PortfolioWhich programmes are over budget, and by how much?Budget, Actual Cost, Cost Variance, Percent Complete

Every one is a Mammoth template, shown below on the sample dataset it ships with.

The examples

Two project dashboard examples

Each of these is a Mammoth template, captured as it renders on the sample dataset it ships with, so every figure on them is illustrative rather than a project result. All three run on the same 486-row delivery dataset: they are three audiences for one set of numbers, not three trackers.

  1. Example 01

    Project Status

    What is actually stuck, before the status meeting starts?

    Every workstream in one state view, with the slippage and its cost on the second page. The point is that the meeting opens from what the data says rather than from a round of verbal updates — a status that nobody had to be asked for is a different conversation from one that was.

    What is on it· 2 pages · Progress / Slippage & cost

    • Status by project
    • Where the work sits
    • Progress by workstream
    • Overdue work by priority
    • Progress spread by portfolio
    • Progress across the grid

    Your data needsDashboard

    • a rate or percentage
    • a category (~4 values)
    Project Status dashboard: Percent Complete, Actual Hours, Budget and Cost Variance tiles, above Status by project, Where the work sits, Progress by workstream, Overdue work by priority, Progress spread by portfolio and Progress across the grid.
    Sample data — illustrative figures, not business results.

  2. Example 02

    Project Portfolio

    Which programmes are over budget, and by how much?

    Budget against actual cost across every portfolio, with effort planned against effort spent beside it. Cost variance is the number this board exists for, and it is shown per portfolio rather than as a total: a programme 20% under and one 20% over net to nothing, and netting to nothing is how an overrun stays invisible until it is large.

    What is on it

    • Budget by portfolio
    • Over and under budget
    • Planned against actual effort
    • Budget against spend
    • Effort spread by workstream

    Your data needsDashboard

    • a revenue or money column
    • a category (~4 values)
    Project Portfolio dashboard: Budget, Actual Cost, Cost Variance and Percent Complete tiles, above Budget by portfolio, Over and under budget, Planned against actual effort, Budget against spend and Effort spread by workstream.
    Sample data — illustrative figures, not business results.

Other formats

The same numbers, presented

A steering review is walked through rather than browsed, and a board built for browsing does not survive being projected. The deck is built from the same 486 rows as the two dashboards above.

  1. Programme Review Deck: the deck's title slide, with slide thumbnails in the rail and 486 sample records.
    Sample data — illustrative figures, not business results.

    Programme Review Deck

    And when the audience is a steering committee rather than a screen?

    Every programme for a steering audience: progress, effort, cost and risk.

    Project · Presentation

Design notes

What goes on a project dashboard

Four things the examples above have in common. They matter more than which chart you pick.

Done and spent are two different questions

Percent complete answers one of them.

A workstream at 80% complete on 130% of its budget is not 80% of the way to anything good, and a board that shows only the first number will be read as reassuring. Both of these dashboards put cost variance on the same strip as progress.

Per portfolio, not netted

One programme 20% under budget and one 20% over sum to zero.

Netting is how an overrun stays invisible until it is too large to absorb, so budget against actual is shown per portfolio and the spread is a chart rather than an average.

Overdue, ranked by what it blocks

A count of late tasks is a number nobody acts on.

Overdue work by priority is a queue somebody can start at the top of, which is the difference between reporting a slip and doing something about it.

The status nobody had to ask for

A status meeting that opens with a round of verbal updates is collecting the data in the room.

On a schedule the board is current when the meeting starts, and the hour goes on the exceptions instead of the collection.

From example to live dashboard

Pretty is easy. Current and true is the hard part.

Any of these can be drawn in a slide. What makes one worth keeping is the five steps underneath it, and they are the same five whichever example you start from.

  1. 01

    Connect the source

    The dashboard reads the system, not an export somebody saved to their desktop. 100+ tested connectors, plus anything with a REST API.

  2. 02

    Prepare it once

    Cleaning, joining and reshaping are recorded as steps you can read, change and re-run — not a formula buried three sheets deep.

  3. 03

    Check it before anyone sees it

    Data checks run with the refresh and flag the rows that fail, so a broken upstream file shows up as an alert rather than as a wrong number in a meeting.

  4. 04

    Put it on a schedule

    Refresh on a schedule and the dashboard stays current on its own. Starter schedules daily runs; Pro adds hourly refresh and event triggers.

  5. 05

    Publish it and send the link

    Public, password-protected or sign-in only. Every sharing mode is available on every plan, including the free one.

Sharing

Everyone can see it.
Nobody pays to look.

Most dashboard tools charge for every person who opens one, which is why so many dashboards end up as a screenshot pasted into a message. Mammoth charges for the people who build. Viewers are unlimited and free on every plan, including the free one.

  • You pay for

    The people who build

    Anyone connecting a source, preparing data or publishing a dashboard counts as a platform user.

  • You never pay for

    The people who look

    Viewers are unlimited and free on every plan, including the free one. A board, a client list or a whole company: the number does not change the bill.

Plans differ in how many builders and published dashboards a workspace gets. Drafts, viewers and every sharing mode are unlimited and free on all four. Full pricing.

Project dashboard questions

What belongs on a project dashboard?
Enough to answer where the work is and what it is costing, and little else. Status by project, progress by workstream, overdue work ranked by priority, and budget against actual with the variance shown. The failure mode is a board that lists every task field the tracker happened to export, which is a report rather than a dashboard — nobody opens it twice.
Is this a replacement for Jira, Asana or Monday?
No, and it would be a poor one. Those are where the work is tracked — tickets, assignments, transitions — and their own dashboards are the right place to watch a sprint. This is for the layer above that: several workstreams or portfolios, often from more than one system, with budget and effort alongside delivery. If all your work lives in one tracker and its built-in board answers your question, use that.
Can it combine projects from more than one tool?
That is the case it is actually for. Delivery data in one system, time or effort in another and budget in a finance export is the ordinary situation, and it is why the reporting gets rebuilt by hand each month. The joining is recorded once as a recipe and replayed, so next month's exports land in the same shape without anyone redoing the mapping.
How current is it?
As current as the schedule you put it on. Starter refreshes daily and Pro adds hourly refresh and event triggers. Overnight is genuinely enough for a weekly steering review; the case for hourly is a board being read live in a meeting where the numbers are being argued about.
Do the project sponsors need licences to look at it?
No. Dashboard viewers are unlimited and free on every Mammoth plan, including the free one — only the people building count as platform users. A steering committee, a client and a delivery team can all be given the link at no per-viewer cost.

Last reviewed against the template catalogue.

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