Graphical indicator for Tasks that show progress in the future
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2012年7月16日 15:34
I would like to show a graphical indicator in the Text 1 field for any tasks that are showing completed work past the current date.
Does someone have a formula for this? And how to I go about applying it?
所有回覆
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2012年7月16日 15:45
CLB24,
First question. Unless you have a time machine, how do you have completed work past the current date? Indeed a task can be completed ahead of schedule or you can have more work completed by the current date than was originally planned, but you simply cannot see what will happen in the future.
Let's get that ironed out and then we can go from there.
John
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2012年7月16日 15:53
John,
That is exactly what I am trying to do. I would like to show this graphical indicator in the weekly meeting to get the attention of the folks working their schedules. The proper way to status the schedule is to move the work either right or left, not show tasks having work completed in the future. I would like to display this so that it will help show the errors in the statusing of the weekly schedules.
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2012年7月16日 15:58版主
Hi CLB,
Welcome to this Microsoft Project forum:)
Set the Status Date via the Project ribbon/Status tab and enter the Status date. Then select Update project/Reschedule uncompleted work to start after... and OK. If you do this, you won't have any completed work in the future.
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 (97-11)
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials -
2012年7月16日 16:03
Hi Mike,
That would take care of the issue, but not the root cause. I need to get the people working these schedules to status their tasking correctly. I need them to look at the impact of each status on the project end dates and resouces and make the appropriate adjustments. If I can point these tasks/issues out each week, hopefully it will help get the projects updated correctly.
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2012年7月16日 17:57
CLB24,
So it's a training issue and you want to apply a little "shock therapy" during the weekly meeting. Right?
How you display this audit indicator depends on how the users are declaring work in the "future". Are they entering actual hours beyond the current date in the Resource Usage view, for example, or what exactly are they doing?
John
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2012年7月16日 18:13版主
Hi,
In a formula or in the graphical indicator conditions compare [Stop] (the latest date actual work is recorded) to [Current Date]. That's it.
Greetings,
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2012年7月16日 18:30
Jan,
Maybe I'm missing something but that doesn't really indicate work in the "future". To me, it only indicates that the task is ahead of schedule. That's why I asked for a definition of work in the "future".
John
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2012年7月16日 19:55版主
Hi John and all,
If stop is greater than current date some work (or actual duation) has definitely happened in the future (the time later than current date). I did try some to be sure. For a finished task BTW stop=actual finish.
Greetings,
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2012年7月16日 20:14
Jan,
I'm just having trouble with the definition of "future". For example, if I have a 10 day task that started on July 9th and it is statues as being 75% complete as of today (July 16th), nothing happened in the future because the future isn't here yet. All 60h of actual work (i.e 75%) occurred prior to today. The task is simply ahead of the planned schedule.
The user could certainly jockey around the schedule to move complete parts prior to the status date, etc. but I'm wondering is really worth the effort.
But perhaps the simple formula you suggested is exactly what CLB wants. Only he/she can tell us.
John
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2012年7月16日 20:31版主
Hi,
By all means, in your example, some actual work is recorded and shown in the future (i.e. after today) which is a heresy. It is impossible to tell whether this is caused by a %complete or by a wrong time registration. IMHO it is a mistake and the idea of showing it as such is not a bad idea at all.
Greetings,
- 已標示為解答 CharlieJolene 2012年7月19日 14:22
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2012年7月17日 2:24
The reason that your people are updating status incorrectly is probably because they don't know an update method which works and gives correct answers, and then don't know how to interpret what they have done when it appears on the Gantt Chart.
The regular Gantt Chart view has blue bars with a black progress bar running through it which shows actual duration.
If it stops short of the status date, leaving scheduled duration in the past, or goes beyond the status date, showing progress in the future, then it must be wrong. So if is is wrong, it is (or should be) obvious, from looking at the Gantt Chart, especially if you can also see the tracking table.I am guessing that the updating is being done by typing in % Complete or % Work Complete, and using either or both of these without first attending to actual start, actual duration, actual finish, actual work, will guarantee incorrect results.
Is it worth it? Well, since tracking progress, and updating, is just about the whole point of doing the planning in the first place, yes it is. If it is not done properly then it may as well never be done at all.
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2012年7月17日 2:47
The definition of "future" is pretty much unambiguous. The status date (or the current date) marks the boundary between the past and the future, so it is v handy to have it shown as a vertical red line on the chart (format gridlines).
In your example, you haven't mentioned a resource assignment or how much work there was planned for the task, but it looks like 10 x 8 = 80 hours distributed equally across all 10 days.
If you declare the task 75% Complete (or even if you type in 75% for % work complete, you are saying that there have been 7.5 days of actual duration, but there are only 6 days of duration between the actual start and the status date, so the max actual duration is 6 days. The software lets you do it but it must be wrong. If you put it in front of someone who knows what it means (perhaps a client but it is unlikely that they know what it means) it could be embarrassing.
If 60 hours of actual work got done in 6 actual days of duration, and only 20 hours of scheduled remain to be done, they can be done in 2.5 days. If progress has been better than expected you could or should revise the remaining duration downward from 4 days to 2.5, which is how all of the downstream tasks in the chain of successors get re-scheduled, and which is why the updating is being done.
If you don't do it properly, you can't control the schedule.
If the updating is done wrong week after week, and just layers new mistakes on top of previous mistakes, the whole plan becomes useless and all of the work which has been put into it is wasted.
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2012年7月19日 14:22
Jan,
Thanks for you help on this. That is exactly what I am trying to do. Bring attention to the issues and errors in updating. The goal is to have the plan up to date and let the baseline and current plan show where we are slipping or ahead of schedule.
