Aligning completed and incomplete parts of a task to the status date.

This s way old thread but I feel like replying to Bill.

Bill,

I could be missing something, or misunderstanding your question, but here goes anyway.

The question is mainly about tracking progress, so the task type and effort driven are pretty much irrelevant. I won't say entirely irrelevant because you might change resource assignments and/or work and/or duration after you have updated the task progress status in which case it might become relevant, but initially it's not relevant. You don't have any resources assigned and so presumably also no work on any task.

I have all of the boxes unchecked (that's the default), so the need to explain the behavior doesn't arise for me.

When you input % complete, you are basically inputting the actual duration and remaining duration, and forcing the actual start date to be the scheduled start date. MSP has to do this because it can't do anything else. When % complete is anything greater than 0, there must be an actual start. It is almost never going to be the scheduled start, so you may as well type it in to the actual start field in the tracking table. Then if the task is not finished type in the actual duration. Then move the remaining part to the status date. Then re-estimate the remaining duration if necessary or leave it as is.

In any case, all of the actual part is in the past and all of the remaining part is in the future.

Avoid typing in % complete. Type in the facts in the order in which they occur:

Actual start

Actual finish

or

actual start

actual duration

remaining duration (an estimate, not a fact)

or

if the task hasn't started but is scheduled to start in the past, move the whole task to the future, ie to the right of the status date.

What's wrong with typing in % complete? Everything. Leave it to MSP to calculate it.

Try not to perpetuate or reinforce the usual popular but dead wrong practice of inputting just % complete.

We use 2010 Standard and 2013 Standard at work and in both cases, aligning won't work with those options enabled.

It doesn't matter whether fixed duration, work or units is used (and although manually or automatically planned).

@MikeGlen & @John: those aligning tasks are very important, when you should capture already running projects

Hi Mike;

I agree with everything you say. However, that is not always practical when an organization is in the early stages of the maturity cycle. Having a simple process that at the same time demonstrates value in executing projects is sometimes more effective to get an organization excited about taking the next step. Sometimes you have to execute projects with the culture and organization you have, not the one you wish you had.

I am still interested in understanding the logic why the configuration results in a different behavior with Fixed Duration tasks than it does with Fixed Units or Fixed Work.

Hi Billkn,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project forum:)

Updating a %Complete is not the recommended way.  You are advised to enter Actual information, eg Actual Start, Actual Work and then enter the Actual Work Remaining, whence Project will do the arithmetic and give you the %Complete based on that data.  If you just enter a %Complete, how could Project know when it started?  In absence of other information it can only assume it started on the planned date.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on :)

Mike Glen

MS Project MVP

See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials