Progress Tracking in Group headers

[rdk]

A customer has an interest in seeing summary level tasks for work that is of
interest to them. I guess most of these could be considered phases
from their point of view.

Unfortunately our schedule was built to suit our WBS divisions and our
phases.
I found that by using a custom field with predefined values, I was able to
simulate their summary schedule by carefully populating representative tasks
and grouping on a custom field. In our case we happened to use Text3 for
Grouping.

The initial planning cast forward, works fine with summary-like Gantt bars
that extend from the earliest start date in the identified task to the
latest finish date.
The grouped view looks like a summary schedule with the ability to collapse
the detail or show it's components as desired.

The problem occurs when we start to progress against some tasks in the
schedule.
The group header returns an Actual Start and Actual Finish, but it seems
that only the last task in the group is represented.
% complete is a complete mystery.

I would really like to define a Group Summary level progress bar that
extends from:
the earliest actual start from within the group,
includes all tasks 100% complete and
terminates with the last tasks % complete through value.

Ralph k.

 

[rdk]

Trevor:

Thanks for the reply.
Fair points.
How about if I reframe the question?

Cost and work subtotal in predictable ways in MSP 2003 and 2007 in summary
bars and group headers.
Can anyone answer what does the MSP app. return in the Group Header line for

Start,
Finish,
Actual Start,
Actual Finish and
% Complete

You might be right and I'm barking up the wrong tree!
After further reflection, it also occured to me that these figures are not
stored anywhere either.
They are only temporary subtotals and likely risky for reporting.

Ralph k. (PMP, PMI - SP)