% work completed for subtasks

[Scottytri]

Should the higher level task average out the % work completed for each of the
corresponding subtasks? If so, how do you make Project do this? I have a
project that requires higher level reporting and I need to be able to provide
the reporting without having to manually calculate these percentages.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

The higher level task DOES average out the subtasks but an average of
percentages is not a simple arithmetic average of the subtasks. You must
weight the higher level task with the amount each subtask contributes to the
total. If I have 3 subtasks that are 25%, 50%, and 75% complete
respectively, the simple average of those percentages is 50% but the summary
task is NOT 50% complete unless the subtasks durations happen to be all
equal. You cannot simply average the percent complete on the subtasks - you
have to go back to the raw data, sum it for the subtasks, and compute the
average from those sums. Lets say we've done 3 days work on each task.
Using the above percentages that means Task 1 requires 12 days total, task 2
is 6 days total, and task 3 is 4 days total. What's the summary percent
complete? The total work we've done is 3+3+3 or 9 days. The total we need
to do is 12+6+4 or 22 days. Our average % complete is 9/22 or 41%, not the
50% a simple average of the completions might indicate.

HTH

 

[davegb]

Project doesn't take the average % Complete of subtasks to get the %
complete of a summary. It takes the hours on each task, multiplies it
by the % Complete, adds them together, and divides by the total hours
for all the subtasks.

 

[Laney]

Project doesn't take the average % Complete of subtasks to get the %
complete of a summary. It takes the hours on each task, multiplies it
by the % Complete, adds them together, and divides by the total hours
for all the subtasks.

 

[Laney]

Thanks for the information. However, NO calculation is happening. We are
consistently getting 0% on higher level tasks even though subtasks have
percentages listed. Any ideas as to why? Or how we can fix this? Thanks
again!

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

First thing to check is to make sure automatic recalculation is turned on.
Tools menu, Options, Calculation tab.