Portfolio 4.4 Release Notes

New Features

In-App Dependency Editing

Dependencies can now be fully managed within Portfolio — no Excel required. Add new dependencies or edit existing ones directly in the application, including dependent and independent opportunities, selection ratios, must/must-not requirements, time rules, and offsets. Dependencies can still be exported to Excel for further editing or use in another portfolio.

Customizable Scenario Display Colours

Scenarios plotted on Portfolio dashboard widgets now support user-defined colours. Select the circle to the left of a scenario name to change its display colour.

Model Aligned with P4 Expressions Column Names

The Portfolio Model now uses function names consistent with the column headers in the p4 expressions sheet.

Derived Metrics

Users can now define simple computed metric expressions directly in the application using Derived Metrics. Derived Metrics maintain a child-parent relationship with their source metric, inheriting the same colours, number formats, and root name. Derived metrics will have an intuitive display name but keep a specific syntax for the metric name. Metrics may be derived from any column reference available in the p4 expressions sheet.

New model function names and derived metrics both support the following functions (where M is any metric reference):

  • PT(M) — Value of the metric at the prior time period
  • Total(M) — Total metric value across all time periods
  • TotalDisc(M) — Total discounted metric value across all time periods (uses Portfolio Details discount rate)
  • TotalInf(M) — Total inflated metric value across all time periods (uses Portfolio Details inflation rate)
  • Disc(M) — Discounted metric value at the current time period (uses Portfolio Details discount rate)
  • Inf(M) — Inflated metric value at the current time period (uses Portfolio Details inflation rate)
  • MaxAT(M) — Maximum metric value across all time periods
  • CumSum(M) — Running total of the metric for each time period
  • CumSumDisc(M) — Running total of the discounted metric for each time period (uses Portfolio Details discount rate)
  • CumSumInf(M) — Running total of the inflated metric for each time period (uses Portfolio Details inflation rate)

Categorize and Describe Metrics with Info

Users can now categorize and describe any metric either through direct input on the Model page of the application, or via the Category and Description columns in the Expressions sheet.

Enhancements

  • Forward and back slashes (\ or /) are no longer permitted in attributes and namespaces, preventing system conflicts.
  • All child projects of a node can now be bulk selected or deselected from Planning Space Economics data sources via the right-click menu. A counter in the Result Set row displays the number of projects currently selected.
  • Selection Comparison Heatmap order has been corrected to be consistent with the selected scenarios.
  • The discount date can now be set independently from the Portfolio start date. Key behaviours:
    • New portfolios default to a discount date equal to the portfolio start date.
    • Once edited, the discount date decouples from the start date and will not change when the start date is modified.
    • If the discount date is earlier than the start date, discount factors shift back by the offset, applying more discounting than the default.
    • If the discount date is later than the start date, no discounting applies prior to the discount date.
    • The discount date applies to all expressions that use discounting functions, even those with custom rates. Master Data can be used to apply a different effective date if needed.
    • Inflation is unaffected and always starts from the project start date.
  • Scatter plots now include a logarithmic scale option in the Appearance menu.
  • A new MaxAT reference column has been added to the p4 expressions sheet, returning the maximum value in the time series.