Progress line

[Bas Grimbergen]

Hi,

When I display a progress line, it has strange behaviour at summary tasks.
Is it possible to turn the progress line off for summary tasks?

Thanks, Bas

 

[John]

Hi,

When I display a progress line, it has strange behaviour at summary tasks.
Is it possible to turn the progress line off for summary tasks?

Thanks, Bas

Bas,
"Strange behavior" is a rather vague term, but you are right in that
progress lines on the summary bar causes concern for many users. To
"turn off" the summary line progress line display go to Format/Bar
Styles. In the list of bar styles find the one for the progress line the
applies to summary lines and delete it. Bear in mind that you will need
to do this for each view that shows a summary line progress bar.

Hope this helps.

John
Project MVP

 

[Bas Grimbergen]

Hi John,

I'm sorry for my vague term.

It's about the progress line, the thin red line, Tools > Tracking > Progress
Lines, not the progress bar.

For example the summary bar over two tasks A and B while there is time
between task A and B:

Summary Bar week 1 - week 5
Task A - week 1
Task B - week 5

Suppose, we're living in week 3, work is on schedule and i would like to
display a progress line. The progrees line will jump forward to week 5 on the
summary bar, which will be interpreted as we're ahead of schedule.

That's a big problem and why we can not use progress lines for showing the
progress in the project.

Maybe you can still help me, thanks in advance..

Bas

 

[John]

Hi John,

I'm sorry for my vague term.

It's about the progress line, the thin red line, Tools > Tracking > Progress
Lines, not the progress bar.

For example the summary bar over two tasks A and B while there is time
between task A and B:

Summary Bar week 1 - week 5
Task A - week 1
Task B - week 5

Suppose, we're living in week 3, work is on schedule and i would like to
display a progress line. The progrees line will jump forward to week 5 on the
summary bar, which will be interpreted as we're ahead of schedule.

That's a big problem and why we can not use progress lines for showing the
progress in the project.

Maybe you can still help me, thanks in advance..

Bas

Bas,
My error. You in fact did say "progress line" but I interpreted it as
progress bar.

No it is not possible to turn off displaying the progress line for
summary tasks. Perhaps I can still help with some interpretation of why
the summary line displays the progress line as it does if I could
understand your example. Could you be more specific? What do you mean by
"there is time between task A and B? What do you mean that the summary
bar is week 1 - week 5? What do you mean, "living in week 3"? What do
you mean by, "work is on schedule"? Perhaps describing you example with
dates and duration would make it easier to understand.

John
Project MVP

 

[Bas Grimbergen]

Hi John, an example with dates and durations:

The Project Start Date is november 2nd. The project has got three tasks, A,
B and C, and a summary task over Task A and Task B. Task A and Task B have a
duration of 5 days. The duration of Task C is 15 days. Task B is a successor
of Task C. Task C is a successor of Task A. The relationships are
Finish-Start.

Summary Task 25d Mon 2-11-09 Fri 4-12-09
Task A 5d Mon 2-11-09 Fri 6-11-09
Task B 5d Mon 30-11-09 Fri 4-12-09
Task C 15d Mon 9-11-09 Fri 27-11-09

The status date is today, november 18th, and the %Complete is as scheduled.
I would like to display a progress line. When i do so, the progress line
(progress point) on the summary bar is set on november 30th. The progress
line will show a peak to the right while the project is on schedule, not
ahead of schedule.


I hope the problem is clear now.
Thank you anyway for you time and replies already.

Bye, Bas

 

[Rob Schneider]

Bas,

I had to build a MPP file exactly has you specified to see the problem.
You are, I think, believing that Summary Task reflects the entire
project. It does not. It is only the summary of Task A and B, and B
can't start until Nov 30th. So, it shows progress done to "future"
since that's where the summary of A and B is actually at (since A is done).

Turn on the Project Summary Task (Menu: Tools/Options/View) and you can
see the Project Summary progress line and % complete is indeed corrrect
(50%) as of the status date.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[John]

Hi John, an example with dates and durations:

The Project Start Date is november 2nd. The project has got three tasks, A,
B and C, and a summary task over Task A and Task B. Task A and Task B have a
duration of 5 days. The duration of Task C is 15 days. Task B is a successor
of Task C. Task C is a successor of Task A. The relationships are
Finish-Start.

Summary Task 25d Mon 2-11-09 Fri 4-12-09
Task A 5d Mon 2-11-09 Fri 6-11-09
Task B 5d Mon 30-11-09 Fri 4-12-09
Task C 15d Mon 9-11-09 Fri 27-11-09

The status date is today, november 18th, and the %Complete is as scheduled.
I would like to display a progress line. When i do so, the progress line
(progress point) on the summary bar is set on november 30th. The progress
line will show a peak to the right while the project is on schedule, not
ahead of schedule.


I hope the problem is clear now.
Thank you anyway for you time and replies already.

Bye, Bas

Bas,
I see Rob jumped in before I could take a look at the detail information
you provided. As Rob said, the progress line for the summary task is
correct. It is showing that 50% of the two tasks under it are complete.
Task A is complete and since Task B doesn't start until Nov 30th, the
summary progress line is shown at the end or Task A which effectively is
the beginning of Task B, namely Nov 30th. Basically the time period
shown by the summary line during which task c occurs doesn't count -
Task C isn't part of the summary line information. Remember, what you
are seeing in the Gantt is duration which is simply a span of time. And
for a summary line that can be very confusing for some users.

Users often find that Project doesn't do things quite the way they
expect. On rare occasions the difference is due to a bug but the
majority of the time it is simply a misunderstanding of how Project
works.

Hope this helps.

John
Project MVP