Configure evaluation criteria

Evaluation criteria are the scorecard reviewers fill in at each governance gate. Each gate has its own set, weighted to reflect what matters at that point: strategic fit at the first gate, financials at the second, delivery readiness at the third. Scores roll up to a weighted total out of 100 on every review.

The built-in defaults

You do not have to configure anything to start reviewing. Each gate ships with a 12-item default scorecard: Proposal Review focuses on strategic alignment, impact, and sponsorship; Business Case Review on ROI, cost-benefit analysis, and risk mitigation; Plan Review on scope clarity, timeline realism, and dependencies. As long as your organization has no custom criteria for a gate, reviewers score against these defaults automatically.

Customize a gate’s criteria

1. Open Organization Settings, go to the Governance tab, then the Evaluation Criteria section.

2. Pick the gate to edit: Proposal Review, Business Case Review, or Plan Review.

3. If the gate is still on defaults, you will see a notice that reads “Using default criteria” with a Customize button. Selecting it copies the defaults into your organization’s own editable set; the defaults themselves are never modified.

4. Edit, remove, or add criteria. Each criterion has a name, a description shown to reviewers, a weight, and a scoring shape: a point score with a maximum you choose, a yes/no check, a 1 to 5 rating or scale, a dropdown where each option carries a point value, or a free-text field for written commentary.

How weights work

Each reviewer’s score on a criterion is normalized against that criterion’s maximum, multiplied by its weight, and the weighted results are combined into a single score out of 100. A criterion with weight 1.5 moves the total half again as much as one with weight 1.0. Text criteria carry no points and are excluded from the math entirely, so you can ask for written concerns without distorting the score.

Tip

Give a criterion weight 0 if you want reviewers to score it for the record without it influencing the total. The default scorecards use this for their free-text “concerns” entries.

Who can manage criteria

Creating, editing, and deleting criteria requires the governance manage permission, which is Owner and Admin by default. Portfolio Managers can conduct reviews against the criteria but cannot change them, unless an owner grants the manage permission to that role in the permission matrix.

Best practices

1. Tune the defaults rather than rewrite from scratch. The 12-item defaults reflect common PMO practice and are a reasonable starting point. Customize 2-3 high- weight criteria for your org’s emphasis (regulatory, margin, time-to-market) and leave the rest. A full rewrite usually trades familiar criteria for shiny ones that don’t get used.
2. Keep the weighted total reasonable for reviewers. 12 criteria per gate is the working limit; 20+ becomes review fatigue. Each criterion should be answerable in 30 seconds — if it takes longer, split it or refine the description.
3. Use text criteria for “explain your reasoning”, weight 0. Reviewers benefit from being asked to write a sentence about their score; text criteria surface the why without distorting the math. The default scorecards use weight-0 text for “concerns” precisely for this.
4. Match criteria to gate purpose. Strategic fit doesn’t belong on Plan Review; delivery risk doesn’t belong on Proposal Review. If a criterion makes sense at every gate, you may be measuring something too vague (e.g. “Is this a good idea?”).
5. Review criteria annually. Org strategy shifts; scoring should track. A yearly review of the criteria — preferably tied to fiscal year planning — keeps the scorecard aligned. Five minutes per gate; big effect on which proposals advance.

Troubleshooting / common pitfalls

• My customized criteria aren’t showing up in reviews. Check that the gate isn’t still on defaults. The “Using default criteria” notice means the gate is using the built-in set; click Customize to fork it.
• Removing a criterion breaks past reviews? No, but Onplana blocks deletion while scores exist on the criterion. The protection ensures past reviews stay auditable.
• My weight totals don’t add to 100. Weights don’t need to. The math is “sum of (score × weight × max- normalizer)” so the absolute weight values matter only relative to each other. Weight 1.0 / 1.0 / 1.0 gives equal weight; weight 1.0 / 2.0 / 1.0 makes middle criterion twice as influential.
• A text criterion shows a score in my report. Text criteria carry no points and are excluded from the math. If a report shows a number, it’s likely reading the absence (e.g., “0 of N text criteria answered”) not the score. Check the report config.
• Reviewers see different criteria than I see in Settings. Reviews capture criteria AT submission time. If you change criteria after a reviewer started but before they submitted, they keep the set they started with. The PMO change applies to future reviewer sessions.

How this combines with other features

• Criteria + Gate reviewers. Designated reviewer panels apply per gate; criteria apply per gate. The intersection is “who reviews against what”. Tune both per gate for the rigor you want. See Set up gate reviewers.
• Criteria + Pipeline. The 12-stage pipeline runs the gates; criteria define what each gate scores. See Understand the proposal pipeline.
• Criteria + Reports. Saved Reports can group proposals by gate score, useful for “show me proposals that scored below 60 at Business Case”. See Run cross-project reports.
• Criteria + Audit log. Every change to criteria goes to the audit log — auditors can reconstruct exactly what each historical review scored against. See Read audit logs.

Coming from another tool

Tool	Mapping
MS Project Online Portfolio Analysis	Direct concept; gate-stage scoring is built-in there
ServiceNow Demand Scoring	Similar weighted-criteria pattern
Spreadsheet-based scorecards	Onplana’s structured criteria replace ad-hoc spreadsheets with auditable math
Smartsheet	Direct mapping for criteria + weights
In-house Excel scorecards	Onplana surfaces the same math with role-gated access

FAQs

Can I delete a criterion that has already been used? No. A criterion that has scores recorded against it cannot be deleted, so past reviews stay auditable. Remove it from future use by deleting it only while unused, or simply stop weighting it.

Do changes affect reviews already submitted? No. A submitted review keeps the criteria and scores it was recorded with. New reviews at the gate use the current set.

Can different gates share criteria? Each gate’s set is independent. If you want the same criterion at two gates, add it to both; that also lets you weight it differently per gate.

Can I see the score breakdown after a review? Yes — opening a completed gate review shows each criterion’s score and the weighted contribution. Useful for “why did this proposal score 73 and not 85?”.

Can reviewers see the criteria before they accept the review? The criteria are shown when they open the review form. If you want them visible earlier (e.g. published in a PMO wiki), copy them into a wiki page. Programmatic access via MCP is also available.

What happens if a criterion’s weight is 0? It’s scored for the record but doesn’t influence the total. Used for the text “concerns” criteria.

Are criteria org-wide or per-project? Org-wide. The same criteria apply to every proposal in your organization at each gate. Custom-per-project criteria are not supported.

Related

• Set up gate reviewers — who scores against these criteria
• Review a gate — how scoring happens
• Understand the proposal pipeline — where gates sit