% Complete

[melmer]

Hi there....I have a question regarding the % Complete column. I know
this is asking alot from Project, but is there any way at all to force
the % over 100 when the Actual Work exceeds the Baseline Work? Also,
is there a way to show the work numbers in red once they go over the
baseline value?

These forums have already proved to be very helpful - thank you for
sharing your expertise!

Martie

 

[Jim Aksel]

Greater than 100% is not possible.
For the second part, this might be helpful.

Insert a custom field, say Flag1. Have a formula in the field evaluate to
"Yes" if [Actual Work]>[Baselne Work] or anything else you find appropriate.

Set the formula to calculate on the summary fields as well.
Change the Yes/No to show a red dot as a graphical indicator if "Yes".
All this is available under Tools/Customize/Fields in Project 2003.

Something like: iif([Actual Work]>[Baselne Work],"Yes","No")
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[melmer]

Very cool, I was able to get that to work....looks good, thank you!
Now I have a new dilemma - I've been using the Physical % Complete
column to show our % Billed to date (as it rarely matches our %
Complete), but I just noticed those percentages are not caluculating
at the summary task level. Why is that and how can it be fixed?

 

[melmer]

Ok, here's the deal - I work at an architecture firm and we are using
project to create a master schedule for all of our jobs. Until
yesterday, I didn't even realize there was a % Work Complete
column....so I plugged it in to give it a shot, and it calculated
exactly the same way as % Complete does, so I don't understand the
distinction. I understand the EXPLANATION posted, and it makes sense
in the Help article I've read, but it doesn't behave the way I would
expect (or perhaps it's the % Complete that's not behaving the way I
expect).

If % Complete has only to do with duration, why is it based on the
work value and why would it match % Work Complete exactly on every
phase? I've also had to do away with the Progress lines on the bar
styles 'cause, when a job would go over budget, the % Complete shows
100, even though there may be 20% of the phase still left to go.
Painful.

Bottom line is, since the nature of our business is to bill time....I
need to distinguish between the % of work that's been completed and
the % billed per phase, as they will never match up. I used Physical
% Complete to track this so I could potentially use this amount for
earned value reports. Wrong way to go, eh?

 

[Steve House]

Adding a note to Trevor's comments...

How can % Complete and % Work Complete differ? Here's an easy example.
We're painting a room. The painter will put on a 1st primer coat on Mon,
taking 1 hour, and let it dry overnight. Tues he does a 2nd primer. Wed he
does a 1st colour coat. Thur a 2nd colour coat. Each of these takes an
hour to apply and is allowed to dry overnight. Fri he comes in and works a
full 8 hour day to do all the finishing and detail work. Because it is 1
resource doing the whole thing we carry it in the project plan as a single
task - there's no need to detail all the parts in order to coordinate the
activities of different resources. Task "Paint the room" takes 40 hours
Duration, the calendar time units that work could be taking place (whether
it does or not) between when it starts and when it finishes. The Work is 12
man-hours, the actual time of activity by the resource. It is now Thur at
5pm and everything has gone exactly to schedule to this point. We have
passed through 32 of the total of 40 hours of duration: % Complete = 32/40 =
80%. The painter has done 4 man-hours of the total of 12 man-hours of work
required: % Work Complete = 4/12 = 33.33%

 

[melmer]

Trevor and Steve.....wow, you guys totally cleared this confusion up
for me. I realize I've been using the wrong fields to accomplish what
I wanted / and thanks to your explanations and examples, I actually
understand why. I get it now! Thank you so, so much.

M.

 

[melmer]

Oh, absolutely....it's very disturbing how easily misunderstood so
many of the critical fields are. I really like your "common mistakes"
listing - a few of those I knew about, but setting status dates and
viewing progress in the tracking gantt never seemed very important to
me. Now I understand that, while the importance of both may be
subjective, the EASIER they make your life if used is obvious!

I certainly hope you hang around for a while....I'm sure I'll have
more questions, and I like having a guru.