---
title: Relationships Within PPM
slug: neurons-for-itsm/admin-user-help/enu/latest/relationships-within-ppm
createdAt: 2026-07-14T19:16:33.861Z
---

## About PPM Relationships

The **Alignment To** field in the Overview part of a Program allows you to determine the route or mechanism you want to use for rolling up both Effort and Budget.

The content of the drop-down list for the **Alignment To** field changes dependent on whether you are creating a Program, Portfolio, or Project. If you are working with a Project, the **Alignment To** field has a choice of **Portfolios**, **Program **or **Major Project**. If you are working in a Program, you have a choice of **Portfolios **or **Program**. If working with a Portfolio, you have a choice of **Portfolio** only.

The unique feature of Ivanti Neurons for PPM is that *both* Projects and Programs can be aligned to multiple Portfolios.

:::hint{type="info"}
**Tip:** Major and Sub-Projects use the same business object; the only difference is the position in the relationship map.
:::

::Image[]{src="https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/parib0MC3hVoUNdfQdnac/8KJMPbpwmo71z42kx0q02_ppm-mapping.png" alt="Graphic showing relationships, financial and hierarchical between Portfolios, Programs and Projects" position="flex-start" size="80" initialPath="../../Resources/Images/PPM-Images/PPM-Mapping.png" githubPath="Content/Resources/Images/PPM-Images/PPM-Mapping.png" showCaption="false" width="935" height="737" darkWidth="935" darkHeight="737" indent="1"}

### Projects

- A Project can be aligned to a Program or directly to a Portfolio.
- A Project can be aligned to multiple Portfolios.
- A Project can only be aligned with *one* Program (hence Program is always singular in the **Alignment To** drop-down list).
- A Sub-Project(s) can be nested under a Major Project and has its finances automatically rolled up into the Major Project.
- Green and Red Budget symbols together: The Project has 2 sub-projects that roll directly up to *two* portfolios and it pulls funds from both green and red Portfolio Master Budgets.

### Programs

- A Program can be aligned to multiple Portfolios.
- A Sub-Program can be nested under a Major Program.
- A Program cannot be nested under a Project.
- You can't align a Program to more than one different entities at the top level (example: A Program cannot align to a Program *and* a Portfolio).
- Programs do not have any budget triangles or circles on them in the diagram. This is because Programs don't usually have their own Budgets; Programs are for organizing and grouping Projects. The **Portfolio Budgets** tab is initially hidden but can be used in the rare instance that a Program has expenses of its *own*.
- You can allocate Portfolio budgets in tabs, but the actual figures are unavailable for editing because they come from Project-owned fields. Programs show managers *which* budgets they are using money from. If you are a manager you can see which Portfolio Budget Plan you can use to create a budget for a Project in a Program.

### Portfolios

- A Portfolio cannot be nested under a Program.
- A Portfolio has a budget, shown on the image by triangles.
- If you have a very large organization, you can nest a Sub-Portfolio under a Major Portfolio. If a Sub-Portfolio has a budget it gets automatically linked to the Master Portfolio. The Projects with the turquoise triangles roll up to *both* Portfolios, whereas the yellow Project budget only rolls up to the Portfolio with the yellow budget triangle.