Project Data Operations

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Overview

Each project row on the Admin Projects page has a process icon (gear icon) that opens a dropdown menu of data operations. These operations manage the project’s data, configuration, and lifecycle. The available options depend on whether the project is active or locked.

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Activating and Deactivating Projects

Use the Project Visibility button (eye icon, top right of the Projects page) to control which projects are live.

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Activating a Project

Opening the Visibility modal shows all projects in two columns; Active and Inactive. Check a project on the Inactive side to activate it. Activation makes the project visible to non-admin users in all project selectors across every module.

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Deactivating a Project

Uncheck an active project in the Visibility modal to deactivate it. Deactivation immediately hides the project from users and queues a background archiving process that archives the project’s reporting data. The archiving runs asynchronously; the project is hidden immediately but the archiving job may take time to complete. You can deactivate multiple projects at once from the Visibility modal.

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Process Menu Operations

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Set as Default Project

Designates this project as the one that pre-selects when users open Dash360. Only one project can be the default at a time. Setting a new default clears the previous one.

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Set / Remove as Favorite

Marks the project with a heart icon. Favorited projects appear at the top of project selection dropdowns across all modules, making them easy to find in large project lists. Selecting this option again removes the favorite designation.

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Calculate Earned Value

Recalculates earned value metrics for the project. Opens a modal to confirm the reporting period before calculating. Calculate Earned Value modal: Click Calculate Earned Value to run. Dash360 calculates EV for the selected reporting period only. Use this after updating percent-complete values in Quick Status or after approving schedule status updates, to ensure the CPR and EV Curves reflect the latest data.

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Copy Cost Class

Copies resource assignment data from one cost class to another within the project. Opens a four-step accordion wizard.

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Step 1: Criteria

Choose the scope of the copy:

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Step 2: Source

Select the cost class to copy from. Earned cost classes are excluded from this dropdown.

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Step 3: Target

Select the cost class to copy to and the copy action: The source cost class is disabled in the target dropdown; you cannot copy a class to itself. Locked cost classes are grayed out with “(Locked)” and cannot be selected as the target. Clear Target Before Copy: When checked, all existing data in the target cost class for the selected scope is deleted before the copy runs. This option is hidden when the target is Budget or Actual (those cost classes cannot be bulk-cleared).

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Step 4: Date Range

Choose which periods to include in the copy:

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Copy Project

Creates a full duplicate of the project: settings, configuration, and optionally cost estimate data.

1. Enter a name for the new project.
2. Choose whether to copy the project’s code files:
   • If yes, select which code files to copy (creates new independent copies) versus which to share (the new project references the same file as the original).
   • If no, the new project has no code files assigned; you will assign them manually.
3. Confirm. The new project is created as inactive; activate it when ready.

Use Copy Project to create a new project phase, set up a parallel estimating scenario, or use a configured project as a template.

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Backup Project

Creates a point-in-time backup of the project as an Excel file. The backup captures all resource assignments, cost estimates, time-phased data, schedules, notebooks, and settings. The backup runs as a background Lambda job. A notification in the bell icon tracks progress and provides a download link when complete. Completed backups are also listed on the Backups page.

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Backup Project to Another Server

Creates a backup file intended for migrating the project to a different Dash360 instance. Options:

• Include Users: embed user records in the backup so they are recreated on the destination server
• Remove Users: strip user references from the backup (useful when the destination server has different users)

Use this when moving a project between environments (e.g., from one client’s server to another).

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Backup Project (New)

A Lambda-powered backup that uses the newer async export architecture. Provides step-based progress (25% → 50% → 75% → 100%) tracked via the notification bell. Preferred over the standard backup for large projects.

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Recalculate Project

Rebuilds computed data for the project. The project row shows an alert color on the process icon when a recalculation is needed (e.g., after data imports or configuration changes). Two modes: Entire Project: Rebuilds all EV metrics, subtotals, and reporting data across the whole project. Custom Recalculation: Limit the recalculation to a specific scope:

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Recalculate Contingency

Recalculates contingency values for all resource assignments in the project. This option is only shown when both contingency-at-RA-level and show-risk-factors are enabled in the project’s registry settings. A confirmation dialog warns: “Are you sure you want to recalculate this project’s contingency? This will reset any manual contingencies you have added to resource assignments.”

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Shift Project Dates

Moves all resource assignment dates for the project forward or backward. Opens a modal with filter and shift options. Optional filters: limit the shift to a subset of resource assignments: Shift method (radio): If the project has a reporting period and EV data from prior periods, a warning displays showing that only data from the current reporting period forward will be shifted; historical data before the reporting period is not moved.

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Respread Resources Linearly by Activity Dates

Redistributes the time-phased cost values of resource assignments using a linear spread across their linked activity dates. Opens a configuration modal before executing. Modal filters: Use this after schedule dates change to realign the cost curve to the new schedule timeline.

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Copy Budget RA Notebook Entries to Earned Resource Assignments

Copies all notebook entries from Budget cost class resource assignments to their corresponding Earned cost class resource assignments. A confirmation dialog warns that this operation deletes and recreates all Earned RA notebook entries for the project before copying the Budget values over. Existing Earned RA notebook entries are lost. This cannot be undone. Use this when the Earned RAs need to inherit the same basis-of-estimate documentation as the Budget RAs.

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Assign All Activity Subtotals as Weights

Automatically assigns the activity subtotal value from each schedule activity as the weight percentage on the linked resource assignment. Executes immediately without a configuration step; no modal or confirmation dialog is shown. Use this to initialize the EV weight structure when setting up a new project that has an imported schedule with no weights assigned.

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Assign All Activities and Resource Assignments that Overlap

Scans the project for schedule activities and resource assignments whose date ranges overlap, then creates the activity-RA links for matching pairs. Opens a configuration modal before executing. Modal filters: Used during schedule integration setup to link activities and RAs that share date ranges.

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Download IPMDAR Files

Exports Integrated Program Management Data and Analysis Report (IPMDAR) files for this project. IPMDAR is a government-standard reporting format for earned value data. See the IPMDAR Export section in Project Settings for details on the 24 files included in the export.

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When to Use Each Operation