Just what behavior are you expecting? I have a task that is scheduled for
last week, starting Monday and ending Friday and requiring 40 hours of work.
Today I mark it 100% complete. That means it started exactly when it was
supposed to, ended when it was supposed to, and required exactly the amount
of work I originally estimated it would. Project doesn't know or care
*when* we post the numbers into the plan and even though it's paradoxical,
it even lets us post "history" before it happens if we choose. So if that
task was scheduled for THIS week instead of last week, simply marking it
100% will give us the same response from Project - it is marked that started
on time Monday, it finished on time next Friday (even though we're aren't
there yet Project doesn't know that), and is complete with 40 hours of work
performed. In other words, actually making the entry to mark it complete on
a date halfway thru the task thru does not mean it finished on the current
date we're doing the entry, in half the time originally planned.
If the task start, finish, duration, or work actually was something other
than what the schedule called for, you can't simply mark it complete.
Instead, you must tell Project what actually happened - the actual start
date, finish date, etc. (Display the Tracking Table in the Gantt chart to
enter the actuals - don't just change the fields on the regular task entry
table - those aren't the same fields) Entering an actual finish date or
entering an actual duration and setting the remaining duration to zero will
trigger Project to mark it 100% complete and recalculate. If it was
originally a 5 day task starting Monday with 40 hours of work but you post
actual start Tuesday and an actual finish Wednesday, Project will mark it
100% complete now starting 1 day late, finishing 2 days early, with 2 days
duration and 16 hours work and recalculates the start of subsequent tasks
according to their links.
