Unveiling Cobra 8.6: Transformative Innovation & Enhanced User Experience

We are thrilled to introduce the latest release of Deltek Cobra, a feature-rich update designed to enhance your project management capabilities and streamline your earned value management workflows. Version 8.6 incorporates customer-driven enhancements in user experience, compliance and process improvement by updating overall usability, responsiveness and intuitiveness.

Release Highlights

Purposeful Innovation

Cobra 8.6 introduces Deltek Dela™ to earned value management. This powerful solution leverages the GenAI-driven Narrative Score to help you craft high-quality variance narratives by evaluating key fields against pre-defined criteria.

Following the release of Smart Narrative Score in PM Compass a few months ago, Cobra is including new GenAI functionality in 8.6 that allows the Cobra user to employ Deltek Dela, your AI-powered business companion, to assist in developing variance narratives. After activating the feature by connecting to your existing Azure OpenAI account, Narrative Score in Deltek Cobra provides feedback in several key areas to help improve the quality of your VAR justification text.

It evaluates the Explanation, Impact and Corrective Action note fields against seven criteria (i.e., challenge and mitigation, clarity and conciseness, completeness, outlook, language and style, metrics and quantification and structure). It provides an overall Narrative Score (1 through 5) displayed in the Analyze utility.

Deltek Cobra Project Analysis

There are two new parts to the Analyze form:

• Generate Narrative Score Button—This evaluates the three note fields and generates the Narrative Score. Clicking this will produce the Narrative Score report and populate the Narrative Score column. There is also a hypertext link next to the Generate Narrative Score button that can be clicked to show a Narrative Score report that has already been produced.
• Narrative Score Column—This shows the Narrative Score for the evaluated control accounts. The score is also a hypertext link to the Narrative Score report for that control account.

Once the Narrative Score has been generated, the Narrative Score report is produced. For any criterion score below 4, you will be presented with some improvement tips, suggesting how the narrative can be rewritten to produce a high score. The seven criteria are averaged, and an overall score is generated.

Dela Narrative Score

Improved User Experience

Other features included in Cobra 8.6 are influenced directly by our customer base. Based on your feedback, we've worked to improve the user experience and make the software easier to use. Several improvements to the information communicated in process logs and Help also make it easier to track down issues and find potential solutions.

• Toggle Project Totals—Users can now display or hide the Total row in the time phase pane. This makes filtering for specific classes or cost sets easier, ensuring a clear and concise view of your data.
• Enhanced Error Visibility—Cobra 8.6 improves error visibility across various views, including the Calendar and Project views. Validation errors are now clearly listed during save operations, making identifying and correcting mistakes promptly easier.
• Display Full Message in the Process Log Viewer—When clicking the Show Warnings or Show Errors buttons, the entire record is displayed, allowing you to identify problem areas more quickly and fast-track the resolution.
• Enhanced Indicator During Process Log Retrieval—Cobra now displays a wait cursor when filtering or deleting records in the Process Logs dialog box, indicating that the query is actively running and preventing unnecessary restarts.
• Save in .xlsx Format with SQL Command Utility—Cobra now supports saving queries in the .xlsx file format when using the SQL Command Utility, enabling you to take advantage of larger workbook sizes.
• Enhanced Process Log Documentation for Validity Check—The Cobra Help System now includes a new Help topic that provides clearer insights into process logs during the Validity Check process, offering detailed descriptions of errors and warnings along with their resolutions.
• Support for Azure SQL— As a testament to listening to our customers, Cobra now supports hosting in an Azure environment, including support for the managed Azure SQL service.

Compliance Updates

Export by Dollars Only—A new option on the IPMDAR Data Options page of the Cost Data Export allows subcontractors to report only their dollars for labor and excludes hours.

Enhancements to the Cost Data Export will ensure that government contractors can successfully export their IPMDAR CPD file in the format their customer or prime contractor requires.

Elevate Project Management by Upgrading to Cobra 8.6

These updates reflect Deltek’s commitment to innovation and our focus on customer-driven enhancements. Upgrade today to experience the transformative power of Deltek Dela in Cobra 8.6. Stay tuned for more PPM product news and prepare to take your project management to the next level with Deltek Cobra!