Effective project management requires more than static numbers. It demands real-time insights, clarity on how the project progresses throughout the timeline, and proactive controls to correct course before issues arise.
The summary bar in the project detailed view, also called the project summary bar, lets you track project health and progress at a glance using project metrics, Watchdogs, trend lines, and more.
This article provides an overview of the information available in the project summary bar and how to customize it to monitor the metrics that matter to you.
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1. What is the project summary bar?
The summary bar in the project detailed view is a powerful tool for tracking project health and progress at a glance:
- Customize metrics displayed in the summary bar for any project type in Scoro to focus on what matters most.
- Enable trend lines for one-off project metrics to show 7-day trends, helping you detect early warning signs, such as declining profitability or stalled progress, and act before issues escalate.
- Set up watchdogs for one-off or retainer project metrics to receive automatic email alerts when key financial or operational thresholds are reached, eliminating the need to monitor them manually every day.
Key things to remember about the project summary bar:
- All metric customizations, trend indicators, and Watchdog alerts are user-based and project-based, meaning that you set them up only for yourself and the specific project you’re viewing.
- The project summary bar metrics take into account data from 10 years from the project start date.
- The order of metrics in the project summary bar is fixed and cannot be customized at the moment.
- The monetary metrics in the project summary bar are shown in the display currency the user has chosen in their personal preference settings.
2. Customizing metrics in the summary bar
By default, the summary bar for one-off projects shows the following metrics:
- Used hours + % of total
- Remaining hours
- Used budget EUR + % of total
- Remaining days
- Overdue tasks
- Earned revenue + % of budgeted
However, you can easily customize the metrics you want to see in the summary bar of any project type by doing the following:
- Click the three-dot button on the left side of the summary bar
- Tick or untick the checkboxes to select the metrics to show on the summary bar
- Click Apply to save your preferences.
Looking for an explanation of a specific metric? See our Project metrics guide to learn more about what each project metric means and how it’s calculated.
The project metric cards' tooltips also adapt dynamically based on the chosen revenue model.
Note!
- Metric customizations in the project summary bar are user-based and project-based, meaning you set them up only for yourself and the particular project you’re viewing.
- If you customized your summary bar, but your permissions were updated, and you lost access to any of the metrics you added to it, the summary bar will reset to the default set of metrics.
- Reordering the metrics in the summary bar or adding custom metrics is not currently possible.
3. Enabling metric trend lines
Note!
- Metric trend lines can currently be enabled only for one-off project metrics.
- Trend indicators for the summary bar metrics aren’t available in all Scoro packages. For more information on the availability, see our Pricing & Packaging page.
To add context to the numbers shown on the metric cards, you can enable trend lines to see a trend line from the past week’s data. This can help you assess whether your budget, profitability, and work progress are following a healthy trajectory.
Unlike most graphs in Scoro, which typically display live or up-to-date data, the trend line data is based on snapshots taken at a specific point in the past and is updated every hour.
To enable a trend line for a metric:
- Hover over the metric you want to add the trend line to and click the gear icon
- Enable the Show trend line for the past 7 days toggle
- Click Save.
Once enabled, the metric card will show a trend line, and changes in the trend will be displayed as a percentage.
Note! Trend lines for cost metrics are available only for users whose permission set includes the View project income and cost permission.
4. Monitoring project metrics with watchdogs
To ensure you never miss a critical change in your one-off or retainer project metrics, you can set up a watchdog. A watchdog proactively monitors your chosen metric and sends you an email alert the moment it exceeds a threshold you've defined.
There are plenty of retainer and one-off project metrics you can effortlessly monitor with watchdogs – here are just a few examples:
-
Monitoring project budget health:
Set up a watchdog for the Forecasted budget burn metric to notify you if it exceeds a certain percentage (e.g., 80%). This allows you to catch potential budget overruns early and adjust your project plan before costs exceed your budget. -
Preventing over-servicing on retainers:
Set up a watchdog for the Used budget metric to alert you when the metric exceeds a specific percentage (e.g., 90%), letting you proactively discuss a scope adjustment or an overage fee with the client before the budget is fully consumed.
For detailed instructions on setting up watchdogs for your one-off or retainer project metrics, read our dedicated Watchdog article.