Risk, Finance, Ping, and Messaging
Some project information is important enough to live on the schedule but specialized enough to need its own behavior. VPM Works Cloud handles these as special L2 items rather than separate side spreadsheets.
Financial Trackers
Financial Trackers are L2 schedule items for project financial control. They can represent items such as capital authorization, project expense, internal expense, internal hours, or project revenue.
They are real schedule work because approval, demand, release, receipt, and consumption can delay the project. The L2 tracker appears in VPM and Gantt; detailed financial transactions live under it as L3 rows.
Important operating rule: a tracker belongs to one phase at a time. If the financial item continues into a later phase, move the same tracker forward rather than stretching it across gates. The history remains with the tracker.
Risk Tracking
A Risk is a special L2 milestone used as a lightweight FMEA-style risk record. It has a mitigation-complete date, a risk status, a mitigation plan, and current and mitigated ratings.
The risk priority number is computed from:
Likelihood x Impact x Detection
Open risks can be new, in mitigation, or on hold. Closed risks can be completed, accepted, or cancelled. The distinction matters:
| Closed status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Completed | Mitigation work was done and residual risk was recorded |
| Accepted | The exposure was consciously accepted |
| Cancelled | The risk no longer applies or did not materialize |
The Risk Report groups open and closed risks and sorts each group by current RPN so the highest exposure is visible first.
Cross-Project Ping
A Ping is a one-way cross-project predecessor. Use it when one project depends on a deliverable from another project.
The consuming project holds a local L2 Ping milestone. The Ping reads the provider task's finish date when the project opens and acts as the local predecessor for the consumer's work. The provider project does not receive a write-back.
If the provider task disappears, the Ping becomes a user-fixable blocking error. The consumer must re-point the Ping or delete it before the affected view can be treated as valid.
Project Messaging
Project Messaging is designed as posting about work, not private chat. A post can be anchored to a task and can mention people who need to act. Task badges show related posts, and mentions can drive unread indicators.
The intended use is simple: keep the conversation with the work. Instead of explaining a risk, action, or handoff in a separate channel and hoping people reconnect it to the schedule later, the project message stays attached to the project context.