Planned vs Actual Project Hours Dashboard

Why Delivery Teams Need Planned Versus Actual Reporting

Project plans and time records often live in different systems, making it hard to see where delivery effort is exceeding expectations. A planned-versus-actual dashboard gives managers a consistent view of hours, variance, and performance over time.

Portfolio-Level Metrics

KPI cards summarize total planned hours, actual hours, completion rate, and overall variance. Managers can understand the portfolio position immediately before reviewing detailed projects.

Monthly Trends and Drill-Down

A comparison chart shows planned and actual hours by month. Selecting a period can reveal the projects that contributed most to the difference, while a heatmap makes recurring overrun patterns easy to spot.

How Retool Can Support the Workflow

Retool can combine project plans, allocations, and time-entry data from databases, spreadsheets, or APIs. Charts, tables, filters, and calculated fields provide both the executive summary and the detailed evidence behind it.

Benefits for Project Leaders

• Compare planned and actual effort in one view
• Identify overruns before the end of the project
• Review monthly and project-level variance
• Find recurring workload patterns
• Improve future estimates using historical performance
• Reduce manual reporting preparation

• KPI cards: Summarizes planned hours, actual hours, completion rate, and variance.
• Monthly comparison chart: Shows how delivery effort changes over time.
• Project filters: Focuses analysis on selected projects or periods.
• Detail table: Explains the records behind each monthly total.
• Heatmap view: Highlights recurring patterns and high-variance periods.
• Calculated fields: Produces variance and completion metrics from source data.