How to calculate planned percentage of completion?

[fawaz13]

MS project doesn't have a field to compute the planned percentage of completion! MS Project has BCWS which is similar to my request, but it will not compute the planned percentage of completion for those tasks that has no cost, no resources assigned. My request is very simple; if I have many tasks in my project (some with assigned cost and others with no cost), at any time I want to know (on the task level and on the project level) what is the planned percentage of completion regardless of the cost.

Example;
If I have a project with the following tasks:
Name Duration Sdate Edate
T1 10 01-01-07 10-01-07
T2 10 11-01-07 21-01-07
T3 20 01-03-07 20-03-07

If I save this baseline,I need a field (planned Percentage completion)to have the following values:

if the status date is:
10-01-07 -----> planned Percentage completion should show 25%
21-01-07 -----> planned Percentage completion should show 50%
28-01-07 -----> planned Percentage completion should show also 50%
15-02-07 -----> planned Percentage completion should show also 50%
28-02-07 -----> planned Percentage completion should show also 50%
20-03-07 -----> planned Percentage completion should show also 100%

Thank you in advance.

 

[PDQBach]

What is the calculation that gives you the answers? What happens if T2 starts 06-01-07? Why are you looking at edays instead of days? What are you hoping to show with this approach? How are you hoping to manage your project better with this info?

 

[fawaz13]

I put this example to illustrate that, the project level planned percent complete depends on the project tasks, and it is not just as simple as (Duration to date / Total project duration).
If the example is confusing, please ignore it, and let me rephrase my question.
What is the proper way to compute the planned percent complete (for the project level) tacking in consideration that I may have some tasks with no cost or resources?
I want to report at any time of the project the following information:
1- % of completion
2- Planned % of completion

I don’t want to use BCWS because part of my project is cost free tasks.

I hope this make my request clear for you

Thanks for your patience.

 

[PDQBach]

I still don't understand why you're using edays and not days.

 

[PDQBach]

A further thought:

T1 is a predecessor to T2.

Task T1: duration 4 days; resource 1 person; work effort 1wd.

Task T2: duration 1 day; resources 4 people; work effort 4wd (1wd per person)

Total work in this example is 5 days.

Based on your examples, after 4 days the project is 80% complete. And that makes absolutely no sense from any kind of project management perspective.

 

[fawaz13]

Yes, I totally agree with you; you mean that, the planned percent complete after 4 days should be 50%.
Ok, regardless of my first example, how can I get this figure (the planned percent complete) from MS project?

Regards.

 

[PDQBach]

You have misunderstood.

Your early example says that after 4 days the project is 80% complete.

By any reasonable calculation the project is 20% complete.

Your latest message says it is 50% complete and the only way you can get that number is by basing your percent complete based on the number of tasks and that is truly inexplicable.

 

[fawaz13]

No, I don’t rely on the number of tasks at all, actually I missed the point that you mentioned for T1 (work effort 1wd).
So my question now: In Day 4, Can I get this figure (20%) directly from MS Project as planned percent complete.

Regards.

 

[PDQBach]

You'll still have to do a bit of work:

In Project
Display the analysis toolbar
Click on Analyze Timescaledata
Click on "Full project"; Next
Click on "Actual Work"; Add; Next
Choose the dates (defaults probably); units (since this is going to Excel you have a maximum of 255 so if your project is more than 250 days you probably should choose Weeks); Next
Click on "No thanks"; Next
Click on "Export Data"

In Excel
Look for the "Total" lines. It'll be clear which items you need to sum.

 

[PDQBach]

Did that give you the information you needed?