Three Data Sets Required for IPMDAR Reporting

This article has been updated as of March 18, 2024 to provide more additional information.

The Department of Defense’s Integrated Program Management Data Analysis Report (IPMDAR) Data Item Description (DID) finalized in April of 2020 is a major change in DOD EVMS reporting. This replaces the earlier IPMR and CPR reporting requirements. 

The earlier IPMR and CPR requirements are oriented toward physical reporting formats. The IPMDAR specifies cost and schedule data that needs to be provided electronically each period. Depending on the specifics of your contract this data can be considerably more detailed than the earlier guidelines. 

The IPMDAR requires three sets of data: 

• Contract Performance Dataset (CPD) 
• The native schedule and a Schedule Performance Dataset (SPD) 
• A Performance Narrative Report 

You upload these datasets to the EVM-CR (Central Repository) at the agreed dates. 

Contract Performance Dataset 

The CPD comprises performance/execution data from the contractor’s existing management systems and contains multiple files in an industry standard format called JSON (JavaScript Object Notation).  

Changes from the previous guidance in this area are as follows: 

• By default, reporting is at the Control Account level with the option for Work Package / Planning Package level reporting 
• The Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS) is now required and must be assigned for each Control Account or SLPP 
• Reporting in Hours along with Total Burdened Cost 
• Option to include historical data time-phased by period or as a single cumulative-to-date value 
• Option to report by Element of Cost (EOCs) 
• Option to include Direct Costs, Indirect Costs and custom Summary Cost types 
• Options for custom fields at the Control Account and WP/PP levels 

Schedule  

This comprises a native copy of the integrated master schedule (IMS) and the SPD that contains multiple files of schedule related data in the JSON format.  

Performance Narrative Report 

This narrative consisting of an Executive Summary and Detailed Analysis Report will typically be in DOCX or PDF format and is similar to the earlier Format 5. 

Commercial Tool Support for the IPMDAR Guidelines 

As of this writing (April 2021) it has been a year since the final guidance was officially released by DOD and software vendors have been aware of these changes for some time before that.  

The state of support with the latest versions of the commercial EVMS software for importing and exporting the IPMDAR formats is as follows: 

Validation of IPMDAR Datasets 

The DOD IPM Division provides Desktop software tools for the following: 

• Conversion of the CPD and SPD datasets in JSON format to earlier formats and Excel 
• Validation of the CPD and SPD datasets against the IPMDAR DEI (Data Exchange Instructions) and FFS (File Format Specification) 

Some of the commercial tools offer validation of the datasets as well.  The validations mostly involve verifying that the sum of the detailed data (e.g. at the control account or work package) matches that of the corresponding data included in the dataset at the summary level. 

Implications Related to EVMS Tools for Contractors  

At the very least you are going to want your EVMS software to easily produce the IPMDAR CPD and SPD datasets. If you are using Microsoft Project for scheduling you will need to consider including an additional tool (e.g. Deltek Acumen) into your configuration that integrates with your scheduling tool so that you can produce the SPD. 

You should also consider how your subcontractors are affected by these new guidelines. The guidelines allow for major subcontractors to submit their own data directly to the EVM-CR. Additionally, consider whether you want subcontractors providing their data in CPD and SPD format to you such that you can perform your own analysis using the data they provide. Depending on your approach here you may need EVMS tools that import the CPD and SPD formats. If your EVMS includes EVMS forProject and you are importing schedule data from Microsoft Project or Oracle Primavera P6, then you can use EVMS forProject to produce both the CPD and SPD.

If you would like to know more about how Pinnacle can help you deliver the IPMDAR and implement the best tool suite, please reach out to us at info@pinnaclemanagement.com. 

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