Project health and the Risk Radar

A status meeting tells you a project is fine; the data tells you the truth. KudosCRM watches each delivery project and assigns it a health rating — good, at-risk, or off-track — so you can see across a whole portfolio which engagements need you today, without asking anyone.

This guide explains how that health is computed, what the Risk Radar surfaces when a project slips, and how to force a fresh scan instead of waiting for the next automatic pass. It's read-only insight built on your real tasks, dates, and invoicing.

Who this is for

Project managers and delivery leads watching a portfolio, plus account owners who need an early warning before a client engagement goes sideways.

Before you start

• A KudosCRM account with access to the project you want to inspect.
• At least a few tasks on the project with due dates — the signals are read from your task data.
• A budget on the project (seeded from the order) if you want the budget-overrun signal to apply.

Health is computed, not typed in
The rating comes from your real data — overdue tasks, blocked tasks, staleness, schedule slip, and budget overrun — not from someone's gut feel. A manual health override is on the way; today the score is fully automatic, which is the point: it can't be talked up in a status update.

Read and act on project health, step by step

1. Find the health badge on the project
   Every project shows a health rating — good, at-risk, or off-track. Scan your project list to spot the at-risk and off-track ones first; those are where your attention is worth most.
2. Open the Risk Radar
   On a flagged project, open the Risk Radar to see the specific reasons behind the rating — it names what's wrong rather than just coloring the dot.
3. Read the overdue and blocked signals
   The radar calls out overdue tasks and blocked tasks. These are usually the fastest fixes — reassign, unblock, or re-date the work and the project recovers.
4. Check staleness and schedule slip
   Look for staleness (nothing has moved in a while) and schedule slip (the timeline has drifted past plan). These point to a project that's quietly stalling even if nothing is technically broken.
5. Watch budget overrun
   If invoicing has run past the budget seeded from the order, the radar flags budget overrun. This is budget versus invoiced revenue — your earliest signal that the engagement's economics need a conversation.
6. Take action and rescan
   Fix the underlying issues — clear overdue tasks, unblock work, adjust dates — then hit Rescan to recompute health on the spot instead of waiting for the next pass.
7. Let it re-scan on its own
   Even if you do nothing, KudosCRM re-scans health roughly every 15 minutes, so the rating stays current as tasks move and invoices go out across your portfolio.

What you get

• An honest, automatic health rating on every project — good, at-risk, or off-track.
• A Risk Radar that names the exact reasons: overdue, blocked, stale, slipping, or over budget.
• An early budget-overrun signal tied to invoiced revenue, before the economics surprise you.
• On-demand Rescan plus an automatic re-scan every 15 minutes, so the picture stays current.

Frequently asked questions

What signals decide a project's health?

Five: overdue tasks, blocked tasks, staleness (nothing moving), schedule slip (the timeline drifting past plan), and budget overrun (invoicing past the order-seeded budget). KudosCRM combines them into a single good, at-risk, or off-track rating and the Risk Radar lists which ones are firing.

How often does health update?

Automatically about every 15 minutes, and immediately when you press the Rescan button on a project. So you never have to wait for a nightly job — fix the issues, rescan, and watch the rating recover.

Can I override the health rating manually?

Not yet. Today the rating is fully computed from your data, which keeps it honest. A manual override is on the way for the cases where you have context the signals don't — but for now, the way to change health is to change the underlying tasks, dates, and invoicing.

Is the budget signal about cost or revenue?

Revenue. The budget seeds from the order total and the overrun signal compares it to invoiced revenue (what you've billed the client), not internal cost or labor. KudosCRM doesn't track time or billable hours on projects — the budget view is strictly budget versus invoiced.

Learn more

• Client project management (feature) — Everything the Projects module does, on the feature page.