Updating the status of tasks and milestones in a Project Plan is crucial to the effectiveness and accuracy of the schedule. If the status of in-progress or near term tasks is Incorrect, then the dates shown for far term tasks and key project milestones will also be incorrect. When posting status in a project you will address task Start & Finish dates, Task Percent Complete and, if tasks have resources assigned to them, Remaining Work & Cost values. For a quick guide to posting status using SSI Tools follow the instructions below. Click the links for a more detailed description of the status posting process.
If the task is complete, simply enter the Actual Start and Actual Finish in the MS Project Actual Start/Finish date fields. Note – you can also enter 100% complete, but this does not guarantee that Actual Start/Finish dates will be earlier than the projects status date
If the task has not started , if the tasks predecessor(s) have not moved the start date past the projects status date, then enter a Start No Earlier Than date constraint date that is later than the projects status date.
If the task is in progress, use the SSI Post Status Tool to update task dates as follows:
Enter the tasks Actual Start and Forecasted Finish in the date fields on the SSI Tools Task Status form (see callouts 4 and 5 in the form example shown above)
Click Post Dates Shown Above to accept Actual Start & Forecasted Finish for the current task
Duration % Cmp (complete) is calculated for you by Microsoft Project but you can enter Physical % Cmp, Work % Complete or a user defined percent complete too.
If the task is in progress, and resources are assigned to the task, use the SSI Post Status Tool to update remaining work, material or cost values as follows as follows:
Click the tab named Work/Cost Remaining
Enter the Remaining Work or Cost values for each resource assigned to the task or enter the total remaining amount at the task level and let Microsoft Project spread the value across all assigned task resources
Status is always posted with respect to the project's current status date (status "as of" date). All task and milestone dates prior to the project status date should be Actual dates and all dates after the project status date should be Forecasted dates. When you post status you are either confirming the current dates shown for a scheduled item or you are setting new Actual or Forecasted dates with respect to the status date.
When tasks have resources assigned to them, you may need to enter the values of remaining work or cost when tasks are in progress. Use the Work/Cost Remaining tab to enter these values at the task level or at the level of each assigned resource.
When resources are assigned to a task, SSI Tools independently calculates work or cost remaining when a task is in progress. The SSI tool uses the current work or cost remaining (before updates have been entered) and divides it by the current percent complete to calculate the EAC, or Estimate at Complete. EAC values are shown on the tab named Assignment EAC List.
For eample, if a task has 100 hours of work remaining and is 50% complete, SSI Tools determines that200 total hours are needed to complete the task. Therefore, if the user changes the task percent complete to 75%, SSI Tools will estimate 50 hours of work remaining. SSI Tools makes this calculation independent of the tasks original (baseline) work or cost total. The user can decide to use this value or not per the option settings on the Setup and Preferences tab.
The Stop light is a simple indicator of a task's status. Red means that the task should be in-progress or should be complete per the current start / finish dates. You must enter correct actual or forecasted dates for these tasks. Yellow shows that the task has not started and is not due to start as of the project's status date. You may need to set actual or forecasted dates even if the indicator shows yellow since the correct task dates may not be the dates shown in the project. Green is shown when a task is complete and no further action is required.
