% Complete

[Verossa]

Morning All,

I have a fixed duration task from 12/05/04 - 01/06/04 involving 20hrs work.

I input work in the task usage view on a monthly basis. When I add 11 hrs for May the % complete equals 93%. It should be 55%.

I've moved the date 10/05/04 - 28/05/04 just to see if the % complete changes as I understand this is effected by the duration and it remains at 93%.

Why is this happening?

TIA to all who respond,
Vers

 

[DonC]

Entering work on a fixed duration task is risky. Project has probably recalculated your total work.

In my view, fixed duration tasks should be used only for truly calendar-driven tasks, like "provide phone support for 6 months". You said it is a 20-hr task. That is fixed work. If you put in 11 hrs against a 20-hr fixed work task then % complete will be calculated correctly. Your dates are probably a "can't start before" and a "must finish by"; since you can't put both constraints, pick one (probably the start) and use %allocation of the resources to drive the duration. If they are the period when a resource is available, then use the resource availability calendar to drive the start/finish dates.
Alternatively, don't enter hours against the task, just enter %complete and let project calculate hours from the allocation

 

[James]

Hi Verossa

Remember that the field % Complete pertains to the DURATION and NOT the WORK. As 94% of the duration of your task is in May, and you have input your 11 hours on "MONTHLY" basis, it apportions the hours across all of the days in May, thus indicating that activity has taken place on 15/16 days = 94%. Being a FD task, it bunches-up the the last 9 hours of WORK to be done on one day in June. If you insert the column of % Work Complete, you will notice that it correctly shows the 55% that you were expecting to see

The "statement" is that: You have done 55% of the WORK, but used 94% of the DURATION. Some poor soul should be starting to panic!!!! :-

HTH

James.

 

[verossa]

Hi,

Thanks for replying... I'll changed the task type

Entering work on a fixed duration task is risky. Project has probably recalculated your total work.

In my view, fixed duration tasks should be used only for truly

calendar-driven tasks, like "provide phone support for 6 months". You said
it is a 20-hr task. That is fixed work. If you put in 11 hrs against a 20-hr
fixed work task then % complete will be calculated correctly. Your dates are
probably a "can't start before" and a "must finish by"; since you can't put
both constraints, pick one (probably the start) and use %allocation of the
resources to drive the duration. If they are the period when a resource is
available, then use the resource availability calendar to drive the
start/finish dates.

Alternatively, don't enter hours against the task, just enter %complete

and let project calculate hours from the allocation.

 

[verossa]

Hi James,

Thanks for responding - I'll change the task type when I get back to the
office and see what happens.

It's a public holiday here - hurray!!!!

Have a good day - Vers

Hi Verossa,

Remember that the field % Complete pertains to the DURATION and NOT the

WORK. As 94% of the duration of your task is in May, and you have input your
11 hours on "MONTHLY" basis, it apportions the hours across all of the days
in May, thus indicating that activity has taken place on 15/16 days = 94%.
Being a FD task, it bunches-up the the last 9 hours of WORK to be done on
one day in June. If you insert the column of % Work Complete, you will
notice that it correctly shows the 55% that you were expecting to see.

The "statement" is that: You have done 55% of the WORK, but used 94% of

the DURATION. Some poor soul should be starting to panic!!!!