Tracking on summary activities

[Helge Svee]

I have one summary activity which is summary of two activities.

Activity 1: duration = 390 days
Activity 2: duration = 30 days linked to act 1 with start-start and lag 110
days.

When I update these activities I get a result I mean must be wrong.

What I do: I report progress at act 1 with these parameters actual
start=planned start(baseline start), act dur = 105 days and remaining dur =
285 days. Act 2 has not started and according to baseline this is right.

What I get at the summary act is:
Actual dur = 97,5 days and remaining dur = 292,5 days.

I have calculated what MSP does( (105/420)*390) = 97,5 days as act dur. In
my head this is WRONG. When I report that the activity have progress in 105
day, then its wrong that MSP calculates the act dur to 97,5 days.

IS IT A WAY AROUND THIS PROBLEM?

 

[John]

I have one summary activity which is summary of two activities.

Activity 1: duration = 390 days
Activity 2: duration = 30 days linked to act 1 with start-start and lag 110
days.

When I update these activities I get a result I mean must be wrong.

What I do: I report progress at act 1 with these parameters actual
start=planned start(baseline start), act dur = 105 days and remaining dur =
285 days. Act 2 has not started and according to baseline this is right.

What I get at the summary act is:
Actual dur = 97,5 days and remaining dur = 292,5 days.

I have calculated what MSP does( (105/420)*390) = 97,5 days as act dur. In
my head this is WRONG. When I report that the activity have progress in 105
day, then its wrong that MSP calculates the act dur to 97,5 days.

IS IT A WAY AROUND THIS PROBLEM?

Helge,
There are various ways that progress could be calculated for a summary
line. The one that the developers chose, (because it makes the most
sense for most users), is the formula you calculated, which gives 97.5
days. That's just the way it is. If you want to use a different method,
then by all means create you own formulas or use VBA. You can get some
insight on how to do it with formulas by reading the thread from a post
last week, "% Scheduled versus % Complete", posted by Co9ug9ar on 3/9/06.

John
Project MVP

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Helge,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

The calculation that Project makes for a summary's %Complete takes into
account the actual data of all of the summarised tasks. In your case, the
second tasks hasn't any Actual data, but supposing you had 20 tasks under
the summary, how would you calculate the %Complete if 7 of them had Actual
data? Microsoft opted for the formula you've percieved except that it will
add the Actuals for all the other tasks (in your simple case it is Task A at
105 days plus Task B zero hours compared to the sum of the individual
Durations).

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Helge Svee]

I have not problems with % complete, my problem is that total progress for my
activities is actual 105 days, not 97,5 as MSP calculates.........

And remaining duration is according to my values 285days and not 292,5 as
calculated.

How can we keep track of projects with MSP when the program calulates values
which is wrong..

Mike Glen skrev:

 

[John]

I have not problems with % complete, my problem is that total progress for my
activities is actual 105 days, not 97,5 as MSP calculates.........

And remaining duration is according to my values 285days and not 292,5 as
calculated.

How can we keep track of projects with MSP when the program calulates values
which is wrong..

Helge,
Did you bother to read my response to your original post? "Your" method
isn't the only method and your method only takes into account the actual
duration of one subtask. What about the contribution of the other
subtasks under the summary - I guess they don't count.

John
Project MVP

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Remember that the progress of summary tasks is not additive ... it is an
imputed effective progress indicator based on a weighted average of the
progress achieved on the each member of the collection of subtasks.