Status of summary tasks incorrect

[Richard]

Hi, I am using the standard status field in MS project, the summary task
shows the status as late when all of the sub tasks are showing Complete , on
shedule or future task, none are showing late.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to get the status of the sumary task to
show the corect status.

Richard

 

[John]

Hi, I am using the standard status field in MS project, the summary task
shows the status as late when all of the sub tasks are showing Complete , on
shedule or future task, none are showing late.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to get the status of the sumary task to
show the corect status.

Richard

Richard,
Without seeing your actual file, I don't have a ready answer for what
you are seeing. Try the following. Hover your mouse over the column
heading for the Status field. In a moment the help file for the Status
field will appear. Take a look at the definitions Project uses for
assigning the various status designations. My guess is, you will see a
problem with the cumulative percent complete for the summary line versus
the status date.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Richard]

Thanks for the reply John. The status date is set to today and the cumulative
percent complete looks right , but the status still says late. I can force it
to say complete by marking all subtasks as 100% complete anything less than
100% complete for all the subtasks then the summary task will show late, many
of the sub tasks are months out in the future. Let me know if you have any
other ideas.

Thanks for your help
Richard

 

[John]

Thanks for the reply John. The status date is set to today and the cumulative
percent complete looks right , but the status still says late. I can force it
to say complete by marking all subtasks as 100% complete anything less than
100% complete for all the subtasks then the summary task will show late, many
of the sub tasks are months out in the future. Let me know if you have any
other ideas.

Thanks for your help
Richard

Richard,
Wait a minute, your original post said all subtasks are showing complete
but the summary is showing "late". Now your saying you can make the
summary show "complete" by making all subtasks complete. Did I miss
something?

You say the cumulative percent complete "looks right", but does it meet
the requirements spelled out by the help file? Use the Task Usage view
and set the timescale to show hours. You might want to use a three tier
timescale with week and day on the upper two tiers so it's easier to see
what day your looking at.

John
Project MVP

 

[Richard]

Hi John, orginal post said tasks that are complete, on shedule or future
task. I am not quite following how the timephased calculation works for
summary tasks. By my way of thinking a summary task should not show a late
status unless at least one of the subtasks is showing a late status? What is
that I am missing?

 

[John]

Hi John, orginal post said tasks that are complete, on shedule or future
task. I am not quite following how the timephased calculation works for
summary tasks. By my way of thinking a summary task should not show a late
status unless at least one of the subtasks is showing a late status? What is
that I am missing?

Richard,
It's been awhile since I analyzed the requirements of the Status field.
However, I do recall, that the status of a summary line tracks the
calculated status of the subtasks. In other words, if one or more
subtasks is late, then the summary shows late, unless one of those
subtasks is a milestone (0 duration). The calculated status of each
subtask is determined by the status date and the cumulative percent
complete. And yes, it can be kind of confusing.

Maybe it would help if I could take a look at your file, or at least a
representative sample that shows the issue. If you're game, zip the file
and send it to me at the address below. I will ask a few questions.

John
Project MVP
jensenljatatfastmaildotdotfm
(remove obvious redundancies)

 

[John]

Hi John, orginal post said tasks that are complete, on shedule or future
task. I am not quite following how the timephased calculation works for
summary tasks. By my way of thinking a summary task should not show a late
status unless at least one of the subtasks is showing a late status? What is
that I am missing?

RIchard,
I played around with the Status field for summary lines and came up with
something that I think will shed some light on how Project determines if
the summary is late or not.

Add Actual Duration field and a spare text field as columns in a task
view (e.g. Gantt Chart or Task Usage). Customize the spare text field
with the following formula.
Text1= projdatediff([Start],[Status Date])/480-1
In the Customize fields window, select the option to use the formula for
calculating task summary rows.

Compare the value in the customized text1 field with the value displayed
in the Actual Duration field. If the custom field value is equal to or
greater than the Actual Duration, the summary line will show "On
schedule". If the calculated field is less, the summary line will show
"Late".

How does it work? Well, the formula calculates the expected progress the
day before the status date (i.e. cumulative percent complete by the end
of the day before the status date). It should be easier to understand
than deciphering the timescaled data.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[R Ramirez]

I have summary tasks that contain only completed & future milestones (no actual work effort) and they show as 'Late', which seems incorrect. Is there a correction for this?

Hi, I am using the standard status field in MS project, the summary task
shows the status as late when all of the sub tasks are showing Complete , on
shedule or future task, none are showing late.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to get the status of the sumary task to
show the corect status.

Richard

On Monday, May 19, 2008 10:58 AM John wrote:
Richard,
Without seeing your actual file, I don't have a ready answer for what
you are seeing. Try the following. Hover your mouse over the column
heading for the Status field. In a moment the help file for the Status
field will appear. Take a look at the definitions Project uses for
assigning the various status designations. My guess is, you will see a
problem with the cumulative percent complete for the summary line versus
the status date.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

On Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:14 PM John wrote:
RIchard,
I played around with the Status field for summary lines and came up with
something that I think will shed some light on how Project determines if
the summary is late or not.

Add Actual Duration field and a spare text field as columns in a task
view (e.g. Gantt Chart or Task Usage). Customize the spare text field
with the following formula.
Text1= projdatediff([Start],[Status Date])/480-1
In the Customize fields window, select the option to use the formula for
calculating task summary rows.

Compare the value in the customized text1 field with the value displayed
in the Actual Duration field. If the custom field value is equal to or
greater than the Actual Duration, the summary line will show "On
schedule". If the calculated field is less, the summary line will show
"Late".

How does it work? Well, the formula calculates the expected progress the
day before the status date (i.e. cumulative percent complete by the end
of the day before the status date). It should be easier to understand
than deciphering the timescaled data.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[R Ramirez]

I have summary tasks that contain only completed & future milestones (no actual work effort) and they show as 'Late', which is incorrect. Is there a correction for this?

Hi, I am using the standard status field in MS project, the summary task
shows the status as late when all of the sub tasks are showing Complete , on
shedule or future task, none are showing late.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to get the status of the sumary task to
show the corect status.

Richard

On Monday, May 19, 2008 10:58 AM John wrote:
Richard,
Without seeing your actual file, I don't have a ready answer for what
you are seeing. Try the following. Hover your mouse over the column
heading for the Status field. In a moment the help file for the Status
field will appear. Take a look at the definitions Project uses for
assigning the various status designations. My guess is, you will see a
problem with the cumulative percent complete for the summary line versus
the status date.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

On Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:14 PM John wrote:
RIchard,
I played around with the Status field for summary lines and came up with
something that I think will shed some light on how Project determines if
the summary is late or not.

Add Actual Duration field and a spare text field as columns in a task
view (e.g. Gantt Chart or Task Usage). Customize the spare text field
with the following formula.
Text1= projdatediff([Start],[Status Date])/480-1
In the Customize fields window, select the option to use the formula for
calculating task summary rows.

Compare the value in the customized text1 field with the value displayed
in the Actual Duration field. If the custom field value is equal to or
greater than the Actual Duration, the summary line will show "On
schedule". If the calculated field is less, the summary line will show
"Late".

How does it work? Well, the formula calculates the expected progress the
day before the status date (i.e. cumulative percent complete by the end
of the day before the status date). It should be easier to understand
than deciphering the timescaled data.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[R I]

I had the same problem (all sub-tasks showing either complete, on schedule, or future task, but it's parent main task showing as "Late" - it just didn't make sense, it drove me crazy ...) ... I did extensive search online, but without results - this was the only thread that was at least trying to find the solution to the same problem I was having. Since I couldn't find the solution online, I kept poking around, and suddenly, ther it was ... The solution lies in the "Project Information" and the problem is caused by an old project "Start date" ... How can this happen? Simple - in my case, I reused an existing project file for a new project. I changed everything, except I never thought about having to go back to the "Project Information" and manually change the project "Start date" information as well - I thought once the start date changes within the Gantt View, it changes throughout, BUT (there is Microsoft for you) it doesn't ... So, the step-by-step solution is as follows:

*** go to: Project -> Project Information -> and change "Start date" accordingly [it might take a few attempts, since it didn't change after the first attempt ...]

After this operation, the main parent task (with completed, on schedule, or future sub-tasks) showed as "On Schedule" instead of "Late"

I hope this helps some of you out there not to have to go through the same frustrations that I did ...

Cheers,
Robert

Hi, I am using the standard status field in MS project, the summary task
shows the status as late when all of the sub tasks are showing Complete , on
shedule or future task, none are showing late.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to get the status of the sumary task to
show the corect status.

Richard

On Monday, May 19, 2008 10:58 AM John wrote:
Richard,
Without seeing your actual file, I don't have a ready answer for what
you are seeing. Try the following. Hover your mouse over the column
heading for the Status field. In a moment the help file for the Status
field will appear. Take a look at the definitions Project uses for
assigning the various status designations. My guess is, you will see a
problem with the cumulative percent complete for the summary line versus
the status date.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

On Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:14 PM John wrote:
RIchard,
I played around with the Status field for summary lines and came up with
something that I think will shed some light on how Project determines if
the summary is late or not.

Add Actual Duration field and a spare text field as columns in a task
view (e.g. Gantt Chart or Task Usage). Customize the spare text field
with the following formula.
Text1= projdatediff([Start],[Status Date])/480-1
In the Customize fields window, select the option to use the formula for
calculating task summary rows.

Compare the value in the customized text1 field with the value displayed
in the Actual Duration field. If the custom field value is equal to or
greater than the Actual Duration, the summary line will show "On
schedule". If the calculated field is less, the summary line will show
"Late".

How does it work? Well, the formula calculates the expected progress the
day before the status date (i.e. cumulative percent complete by the end
of the day before the status date). It should be easier to understand
than deciphering the timescaled data.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[R I]

SORRY - it is still not quite right ... It worked for one file for which I set the project to start today, but I had another file for another project which had an ealrier project Start date than today for which the trick didn't do it, unless I changed the Start date to be today, but I can't do that since that project started 2 weeks ago ...
Something doesn't make sense though, since I tried to set the Start date back for the other file that works, and it still works for that one ...
So, now I am loosing it ...

Robert

 

[R I]

OK, it appears that now I found the other missing piece of the puzzle ... Since I was desperate, I started re-entering tasks and then deleting the old entries - and this resolved the issue. I didn't have to re-enter and delete everything just a few - why, and what the difference between those that needed to be deleted and those that didn't, I don't know (even though I checked and compared all of their parameters before deleting them ...)
Cheers,
Robert

 

[kiran.sappayroll]

Useful post - even after 2 years - Thanks.

Found this solution worked for me:

Project -> Project Information -> and change "Status date" to the same as Start Date.

So 80% credit to Robert - I'll take 20%. Using Project 2010 if that helps.

Kiran

 

[katfob]

Thank You so much for this thread! Finally a solution to a problem many of my .msp pros could not solve!

 

[kevin.foley]

Thanks Everyone. Saved me a couple of hours work!!
Kevin Foley PMP