The launch of Custom Report Templates is all about making construction reporting faster, easier, and more standardized, without sacrificing flexibility. Now, SmartPM users can choose from 8 pre-built templates designed for specific project roles, from executives to field teams, ensuring the right insights reach the right people with minimal effort. Whether it’s tracking schedule risk, progress, or quality, these templates eliminate the guesswork of report-building while maintaining full customization options.
How to Access Custom Report Templates in a Project
- Click on a project in SmartPM.
- Click the Reports tool on the right-hand menu.
- Click 'Create Report' in the reports tool.
- You can then choose from the pre-built reports and begin editing/customizing the report. You can also choose to start a blank report from new.
- After you choose a pre-built report, click 'Begin Editing' to edit the report to fit your needs.
Contractor’s Narrative Report
Intended Audience:
Contractors, Project Managers, Field Teams, and anyone who needs a clear, narrative-based update on the project’s progress and risks.
Purpose:
This report provides an easy-to-read narrative of the project’s status. It explains schedule performance, slippage, and key milestones so everyone understands current progress and risks.
Key Takeaways / What’s Included:
- Narrative on Current End Date: Explains how the project’s finish date compares to baseline and contract requirements (includes delays, float changes, or acceleration).
- Project Health & Schedule Performance: Shows a health index, planned vs. actual percent complete, and slippage in days.
- Key Milestones Table: Lists critical milestones with baseline vs. current end dates, progress, and any delays.
- Compression Index & SPI Over Time: Reveals how much the schedule is compressed and tracks the Schedule Performance Index, highlighting potential risk.
- Monthly Activity Distribution: Charts when activities start and finish (actual vs. baseline vs. planned).
- Schedule Delay & Changes Over Time: Visuals track end date variance and highlight changes in activities, logic, calendars, etc.
- Changes Summary: A snapshot of what shifted between updates (e.g., added activities, updated durations).
- Critical Changes Table: Detailed view of changes to the schedule’s critical path since the last update.
- Critical Path Focused Gantt View: A filtered Gantt chart focusing on the remaining critical path activities.
These insights help teams manage expectations, identify upcoming risks, and address schedule compression or slippage proactively.
Use Case: A PM reviews this report with subcontractors after each schedule update. They see how far off any critical activities are, discuss immediate delays, and adjust the upcoming week’s staffing to keep the project on track.
Quality Report for Project Managers
Intended Audience:
Project Managers (or anyone responsible for ensuring schedule accuracy and reliability).
Purpose:
This report measures the structural soundness of the project schedule using select quality metrics. It pinpoints areas where the schedule might be weak, helping teams fix issues early.
Key Takeaways / What’s Included:
- Schedule Quality Grade: A single letter/number/color grade to quickly gauge overall quality.
- Grade Trends & Key Metrics: The report tracks 22 core metrics (out of 35 in SmartPM), including DCMA-related checks.
- Logic & Relationship Checks: Details on missing logic, relationship types (FS, SS, FF, etc.), and positive/negative lag.
- Activity Durations & Float: Flags high duration activities, high float activities, and measures float trends over time.
- Actual Dates & Percent Complete: Shows where dates or percent complete values may have changed unexpectedly.
- Narrative Summary: A final page explains the schedule’s reliability, key risk factors, and improvement areas.
These insights help project managers see if their schedule is reliable enough to guide decisions.
Use Case: A project manager checks the “Missing Logic Activities” and “High Duration Activities” metrics right after each schedule update. If certain tasks have no predecessors or extremely long durations, they discuss with the team to add logic relationships or break the activities down for better accuracy.
What’s Different: Unlike the Contractor’s Narrative Report, which focuses on progress and milestones, this report zeroes in on technical schedule quality, without technical jargon. It reveals structural issues that can undermine project controls.
Progress & Delay for Project Managers
Intended Audience:
Project Managers (or anyone responsible for ensuring schedule accuracy and reliability).
Purpose:
This report tracks how well the project is executing against the plan by highlighting key performance indicators like activity hit rate, start/finish accuracy, and delay trends. It helps teams understand where schedules may be slipping—or accelerating—so they can act quickly.
Key Takeaways / What’s Included:
- Activity Hit Rate Trend: Shows how often activities start or finish on time, helping managers spot patterns of consistent delay.
- Should Have Started/Finished Pie Charts: Breaks down the percentage of activities that hit their planned start/finish within each update window.
- Window Start/Finish Accuracy: Bar charts that compare actual vs. planned dates for each reporting window.
- Schedule Delay & Acceleration Over Time: Visual trend lines reveal whether end dates are drifting or moving up, indicating risk or opportunity.
- End Date Variance Trends: Tracks how the final completion date shifts over time, showing the magnitude of potential overruns or gains.
- Delay & Acceleration Table: A period-by-period breakdown of activities driving changes in the schedule, including metrics like net critical path delay and milestone float.
By focusing on these execution metrics, project managers can quickly see where schedules are deviating and take corrective actions.
Use Case: A project manager reviews the “Should Have Started/Should Have Finished” pie charts each week. When they notice too many activities did not finish on time, they investigate the root cause—like resource shortages or coordination gaps—and adjust the plan or crew schedules immediately.
What’s Different? While the Quality Report focuses on structural integrity of the schedule, Progress and Delay zeroes in on how activities are actually executed over time. It shines a light on real-time performance rather than long-term schedule soundness.
Progress & Delay for Project Managers
Intended Audience:
Superintendents, Field Managers, and other on-site personnel who need a quick, practical view of upcoming activities and current performance trends.
Purpose:
This report highlights how well the project is executing week by week, focusing on near-critical activities and a short-term (three-week) lookahead. It helps superintendents quickly see what’s behind, what’s on track, and what needs attention next.
Key Takeaways / What’s Included:
- Activity Hit Rate & Accuracy Charts: A quick look at how many activities started/finished as planned and any patterns of delay.
- Near-Critical Path Table: A filtered list of activities at risk of becoming critical, showing planned vs. actual dates, progress, and float.
- 3-Week Lookahead Gantt: A visual schedule of critical, near-critical, and non-critical activities for the immediate future.
This mix of trends and near-term activities helps superintendents take daily or weekly action to keep the project on course.
Use Case: A superintendent checks the near-critical path table each Monday to see which activities are close to slipping. They then review the 3-week lookahead Gantt to confirm the next set of trades and resources needed, preventing delays before they become critical.
What’s Different: Compared to the Progress and Delay report (which offers a broader view of overall schedule performance), the Superintendent Report zeroes in on immediate field-level activities and deadlines. It’s less about long-term trends and more about actionable next steps.
Executive Risk Report
Intended Audience:
Executives, Owners, and Senior-Level Stakeholders who want a concise overview of a project’s past performance and future risk outlook.
Purpose:
This report distills key schedule metrics into a high-level snapshot of risk and performance. It also provides a forecasted completion date if the project is more than halfway done, giving executives a clear sense of where the project stands and where it’s headed.
Key Takeaways / What’s Included:
- Key Dates & Delays: Shows the target vs. current vs. predicted completion date, plus any days of critical path delay, future acceleration, and slippage.
- Risk & Quality Indicators: Displays the Schedule Compression Index, Quality Grade, and Project Health Index, along with a narrative explaining potential risks.
- Performance Curves: Compares planned vs. actual percent complete and offers a predictive completion curve if the project is over 50% done.
- Historic Trends & Narrative: Charts compression, activity hit rates, and monthly distribution of starts/finishes. Concludes with a written explanation of what the Compression Index trends mean for project feasibility.
This combination of metrics and explanations helps decision-makers see both historical performance trends and future risks at a glance.
Use Case: An executive quickly checks the predicted completion date and compares it to the baseline. If the report shows rising compression and a slipping end date, they may call a meeting with the project team to discuss additional resources or schedule modifications before delays become unmanageable.
What’s Different: While the Superintendent Report targets day-to-day field activities, the Executive Risk Report focuses on high-level trends, forecasts, and strategic risks. It offers less granular detail but more long-range and risk-oriented insights.
OAC Report
Intended Audience:
Owners, Architects, and Contractors—especially those collaborating in OAC (Owner-Architect-Contractor) meetings, where schedule changes and accountability are front and center.
Purpose:
This report highlights how the schedule has changed over time, focusing on modifications that could impact the project’s timeline or critical path. It helps OAC teams quickly identify major shifts, discuss concerns, and agree on next steps.
Key Takeaways / What’s Included:
- Schedule Changes Over Time: Shows the volume and types of changes (e.g., critical/near-critical, logic, calendar, duration) so everyone sees where the schedule is shifting.
- Changes Summary & Project Comments: Summarizes all updates since the last review and includes space for key observations, action items, or issues that need follow-up.
- Activity Change Log: A detailed table listing specific changes (like added activities or updated durations), old vs. new values, and any flags or criticality markers.
- Monthly Distribution Details: Compares baseline vs. current starts/finishes month by month, illustrating how the schedule is evolving across the project’s timeline.
This structure helps OAC teams track the impact of every schedule adjustment and address potential issues before they escalate.
Use Case: During an OAC meeting, the contractor presents the change log to show why certain tasks were extended. The architect notes a design revision caused some of those changes, and the owner uses the monthly distribution table to confirm if the revised schedule still meets key completion milestones.
What’s Different? While the Executive Risk Report focuses on high-level risk and completion forecasts, the OAC Report zeroes in on the nitty-gritty of how the schedule evolves—making it ideal for collaborative problem-solving among owners, architects, and contractors.
6 Week Lookahead
Intended Audience:
Superintendents, Field Managers, and Project Teams who need a short-term, actionable view of scheduled work.
Purpose:
This report turns the entire project schedule into a simple six-week forecast. It helps teams coordinate upcoming activities, prepare resources, and catch issues on critical or near-critical items before they escalate.
Key Takeaways / What’s Included:
- Gantt View of Next 6 Weeks: Clearly labeled activities with start/end dates, grouped by critical, near-critical, and non-critical status.
- Critical & Near-Critical Focus: Helps teams anticipate areas where delays could affect the overall schedule.
- Resource & Material Planning: Teams can see exactly which activities need to start soon, making it easier to schedule crews and order materials in advance.
These elements give a concise snapshot of what’s happening in the immediate future so field crews can plan with confidence.
Use Case: A superintendent reviews this six-week report every Monday to align subcontractors, check on material deliveries, and confirm that any near-critical activities have the resources needed to prevent delays.
What’s Different? While the Superintendent Report also includes a short-term lookahead, this 6 Week Lookahead focuses solely on near-term scheduling in a Gantt format. It’s more detailed for planning day-to-day or week-by-week activities.
Checklist (USACE Spec)
Intended Audience:
Project Managers, QA/QC Teams, and Stakeholders who must ensure schedules comply with USACE (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) specifications or other formal quality guidelines.
Purpose:
This report automatically checks a project schedule against standard USACE requirements. It highlights which criteria are met and which need attention, ensuring the schedule is submission-ready according to official guidelines.
Key Takeaways / What’s Included:
- Yes/No/N/A Checklist: A table view that references each specification section, stating whether the schedule meets the requirement.
- Visual Indicators: Green for “Yes,” Red for “No,” and options for “N/A,” making it easy to spot areas that need improvement.
- Automatic Identification of Non-Adherence: Quickly flags missing or incorrect information, helping teams correct issues before formal submission.
This ensures everyone has a clear, documented record of schedule compliance.
Use Case: Before sending the latest schedule update to the USACE, a project manager runs this checklist to confirm everything—like format (.xer) and data completeness—meets the required specs. If anything is marked red, they revise the schedule and rerun the checklist until all items pass.
What’s Different? While the Quality Report for Project Managers focuses on structural soundness and risk metrics, this Checklist (USACE Spec) is a straightforward compliance tool. It specifically addresses regulatory or contractual guidelines rather than overall schedule performance.
Got a brilliant idea for a new report? We’re all ears. Reach out to your SmartPM rep or email support@smartpm.com.