Resume date for task with multiple split

[Martin H.]

I have a somewhat tricky problem: I want to create a management view
which displays project progress on a time axis. MSP out-of-the-box can
handle this for individual tasks, but not for summary tasks, as a)
progress is not shown for summary task (MS knows why, because it would
be wrong, see below) and b) if you take the "CompleteThrough" date, it
will be Duration divided by % complete, which does not take into
account that work is not evenly spread over time. Besides, how can you
be on time with a summary task if you haven't completed a milestone a
month back from the status date. My definition of progress on a
summary task is this: the task below the summary task with the
EARLIEST progress defines the progress on a summary task (if you
missed that milestone a month ago, your entire summary task is a month
behind). Much more management-friendly! You might argue that in this
situation the pm should reschedule all work from the past to the
future, but that is too advanced for the majority of our project
managers, they think in terms of static schedules. However, if I can
show management such a report, they will ask questions and that
creates pressure on the project managers to reschedule.
So I defined a Custom Field which I call "Progress Date", the formula
is "IF % Complete = 100; 'NA';ELSE "Finish - Remaining Duration"),
Rollup Minimum to Summary Tasks" which I use to calculate progress on
a summary task. Works perfectly UNLESS I am in between two parts of a
split task, then the remaining duration is calculated from the end of
the first part. So if you finished the first part of a task a month
ago, and intend to do the second part in a month's time, it looks like
you are a month behind, although your progress is exactly as
scheduled. I would rather have the status date, or the start date of
the remaining part. Now before I tell the project managers to twist
their schedules because the tool cannot handle a perfectly normal
situation, I rather try to find a solution. I tried the "Resume"
field, but cannot handle tasks with multiple splits (Resume is always
after the first split, no matter how many splits there are).

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

1. You are quite pessimistic. With all my customers, from the onset, I
introduce Reschedule Work as somthing absolutely necessary ("you aren't
telling me you are goiing to do that last week, are you? How cerdible do you
want to be?"

2. Project 2007, SP2, Resume field does not behave as you say, even with
multiple splits it shows the first date where any non-actual work is
scheduled, so it is pefect for your purposes.
Hope this helps,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[Martin H.]

After spending a quiet Saturday in the Office I came up with this
formula for an enterprise field which I call "Progress Date"

Switch([Status]=0;'NA';[Status]=3;[Status Date];[% Complete]=0;Start;0<
[% Complete]<100;ProjDateSub([Finish];[Remaining Duration]))

The calculation for summary tasks is "Rollup - Minimum".

The value contains this:
- if Task is Complete = "NA"
- if Task is in the future = Status Date (here's the trick!)
- if Task is not started = Start Date
- if Task is being worked on = "Complete Through" (Finish - Remaining
Duration is the formula for Complete Through)

So on the summary task I now have a field which I can use to indicate
the task with the _least_ progress. If I am in a break between two
tasks, the progress date will be the Status Date. There are some rare
instances where the formula indicates a strange date (e.g. split in
the future, strange manual editing of assignments by users), but
overall it works perfectly.

I have a few other elements to make the view happen:
- since Enterprise Fields cannot be used for "Bar Styles" (very
unfortunate!), I need to map this Enterprise Field to a local
"Finish10" field in every project.
- I also have a "Progress Status" which - depending on the difference
between the Progress Date and the Status Date - is calculated as "Very
Late" (>4w), "Late" (>2w), "OK" (<2w), "Completed" or "Future Task". I
have mapped this to a symbol field and can create very nice traffic
light reports. This is actually more accurate than the built-in MSP
feature, which can create false alarms.
- and finally there are some views, tables and a filtere ("Late
Tasks") to make it complete.

Works very nice, users are happy and it is fairly easy to understand
and handle. The only manual process is the mapping of the "Finish10"
field to the Custom Enterprise Field"