Thanks for staying with me....I do get the difference between the three.
Another question..maybe I'm supposed to start another thread???
What is the best way to create a weekly report which shows:
weekly plan%, weekly actual%, weekly delta%, cumul. plan%, cum actual% &
cum
delta%?
Thanks,
Mareveli
:
Project has three completion metrics available. % Complete refers to
available working time elapsed so far versus total project duration. %
Work
Complete is the number of man-hours spent versus the total man-hours
required. And finally, % Physical Complete is an estimate of the amount
of
deliverable completed versus the amount required (often a very tricky
thing
to quantify - what objectively measurable attribute would the statement
"The
computer program I'm writing is 65% Physical Complete" be referring to?)
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
Thanks Steve...I think I'm there. I've done all that now. What is
concerning me is that based on our billing and progress kept by the
engineering manager (who was doing all this through excel before the
customer
demanded msproject) the progress is not quite 70%. The %complete I am
showing in msproject is 91%. I took all the data for the msproject
schedule
from the eng mgrs spreadsheets. The % work complete is showing at 79%.
It
seems that this is a much better calculation to show progress than %
complete. It's closer, but still off.
Mareveli
:
Sometimes a viable approach is to build the complete plan as if work
had
not
yet taken place using the durations that the tasks that are complete
actually took and the duration estimates for the tasks that are still
to
be
worked. Then switch to the tracking table and tracking Gantt views,
mark
the completed tasks as done and where necessary update the Actual
Start
and
Actual Finish dates for them, then enter Actual Start dates and Actual
and
updated Remaining durations (if necessary) for tasks that are in
progress.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
Thanks for all of the responses. I finally have some breathing space
since I
don't have any deadlines for the next few days (I hope), so I should
be
able
to take the time now to obtain accurate dates and durations. If
not,
I'll
try Julie's suggestion.
Thanks again for the input!
Mareveli
:
One more suggestion - am not sure how useful it is though. Why not
use
Excel spreadsheet instead of MS Project - since most of the tasks
are
complete. This spreadsheet could have the required columns and then
they can be filled out. Looking at the situation, am not too sure
whether putting everything together in MS Project is the way to go -
it
looks like there will be too much of effort without corresponding
benefits.
HTH.
Steve House wrote:
Why can't you use the tracking tools that Project provides? Just
remember
that "% Complete" refers to duration, not work performed and not
the
amount
of the deliverable that has been done. If a task has 5 days
duration
and
has been worked on for 3 days with 2 still to go, the task is 60%
Complete.
If you have a task showing it starts such and such a date and a
certain
duration and enter a number for % Complete, Project will assume it
began on
the date the schedule shows and your input percentage of the total
duration
has been consumed doing the task so far. Or regardless on the
estimated
start date your schedule called for and the duration it shows, if
you
display the Tracking Table in the Gantt chart view and enter the
date
the
task actually began in the Actual Start field, the amount of time
that
work
occupied so far in the Actual Duration column, and the resource's
best
guess
as to the amount of time remaining until the task is finished in
the
Remaining Duration, Project will update the duration and display
the
correct
% Complete for you. And it will rollup those values to the summary
task
lines and the Project Summary task as well, displaying there a
weighted
average progress based on the actual progress posted for the
activities.
Project IS showing you the real % complete in the summary lines -
why
do you
think it's not?
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
Well, maybe at this point I should just create a notes column,
input
the
%s,
and title it "% complete." It is accurate data. The only problem
with
this
is that I am already using the notes column for notes.
mareveli
:
Hi Mareveli ,
I think John gave you a realistic and honest answer to your
situation.
If you enter the %Complete for each individual task, then the
Summary and
Project %Complete will be calculated for you, you have no control
over
this
and cannot fudge the summary figures without fudging the task's
data. If
that's not happening, tell us what is happening, how/where you
enter
the
data and what you are expecting to see.
Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See
http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for Project Tutorials
wrote:
wow...this is precisely why I wanted to take this off-line, so
I
could
hopefully avoid you John. Your sanctimonious reply is not in
the
least bit helpful, but only rubs salt in an already painful
wound.
First of all...I have just inherited this project and you have
no
clue how I, my company, or the customer have arrived at this
point.
So please refrain from the judgements and ciriticisms. If you
don't
want to help then don't. The schedule needs to be there and I
would
like to show % complete based on what I am being told by the
experts
is the percentage complete on the individual tasks. I would
like
the
real% complete to be reflected in the summary tasks and the
project
summary. If someone knows how I can do this I would appreciate
the
tip so I can just make it through the end of this project and
then
I
can start the right way with the next.
Hoping for a helpful response!
mareveli
:
Help! Is there someone who will take pity on me and give me
an
email address so I don't have to bother this community with
my
stupid questions? Here's the deal...I've had to throw this
schedule together really fast without time to bone up on
msproject.
I loaded the resources incorrectly, a lot of the durations
are
bogus because we wanted certain end dates to show. I just
need
to
be able to show accurate progress but really can't figure out
which
approach is best for this when the data being used is not
accurate.
I am taking a class, but not until next week and I really
need
to
talk to someone about the best way to move forward with this
schedule. This project is nearing its end and the customer
was
angry because there was no schedule, so I've had to go back
and
enter work that has already been done. It was all very
rushed
and
the person I was getting the task etc. info from was in the
middle
of moving from one house to another with his family and I had
to
keep calling him on the phone... I try to get the answers
from
project help. Sometimes I find the answers and sometimes I
don't.
Sometimes, I just can't follow it. I've also found a wealth
of
info in this discussion group, but I learn much faster by
doing
than by reading and I just don't have a lot of time to put
into
it.
So...if anyone is feeling merciful and can give me some help,
I
would really appreciate it. My email address is
(e-mail address removed).
Desperately yours,
Mareveli
Mareveli,
First of all, questions posted to this newsgroup, especially
by
new
users, are rarely stupid. Second, the sole purpose of this
newsgroup
is to help Project users. The topics discussed here are
generally
of
interest to a wide audience and therefore it is desirable to
keep
the
discussion in the newsgroup. On rare occasions it may make
sense
to
help a user on a one-on-one basis, but so far, your issues
don't
appear to fall into that category.
It appears you have been put between a rock and a hard place
but
you
certainly can NOT get "accurate progress" from a schedule plan
that
is "bogus". The two just don't mix. If your customer is angry,
(and
he probably should be if the project is nearing completion and
there
