The Task Progress tab is used to confirm or adjust Start & Finish dates for tasks and milestones in a project. You do not need to post status to Summary or "Group by" summaries in a project as these items will automatically calculate their status based on the status of underlying items.
Forecasted dates must always be later than the project's status date. When you see Start or Finish highlighted in yellow, it means that you need to transfer that date to the Actual side of the date fields or you need to advance the date making it occur after the project's status date. If you change Actual or Forecasted dates, you must press Post Dates Shown Above to set those dates in the project.
The button named Accept the Current Task Dates will evaluate the current dates relative to the project status date and set them as Actual or Forecasted for you. If you use this button, Forecasted Start/Finish dates may be set as Actual dates without requiring you to place those entries on the Actual side of the date entry fields.
Actual Start and Finish dates must be prior to the project's status date. Yellow highlights in these fields lets you know that the actual date shown is later than the project status date and must be corrected since Actual dates in the future violate the basic status rule that actual dates must be in the past and forecasted dates must be in the future relative to the project status date.
The button named Accept the Current Task Dates will evaluate the current dates relative to the project status date and set them as Actual or Forecasted for you. If you use this button, Forecasted Start/Finish dates may be set as Actual dates without requiring you to place those entries on the Actual side of the date entry fields.
Microsoft Project automatically calculates "duration based" percent complete using this formula: % Complete = Remaining Duration / Total Duration (where total duration = elapsed duration plus remaining duration). You can't change this value since it is based on the ratio of the number of days from Actual Start through the project status date vs the number of days from the status date to the Forecasted Finish date.
The automatic calculation of "duration based" percent complete may not tell the whole story when reporting the status of an in progress task. Having completed 50%, for example, of a task's total duration does not necessarily mean that 50% of the work effort is complete. For this reason, Microsoft Project includes Physical % Complete and Work % Complete which may be used in addition to the duration based percent complete value. Physical % Complete is not a calculated value and can be entered directly by the scheduler. Work % Complete is calculated by Microsoft but it can be different than the duration based calculation since it is based on the amount of work hour remaining vs the total work hours associated with a task. Options on the Setup and Pref tab, let the user define which field is used for entering the non-calculated percent complete value.
After entering Actual or Forecasted dates, use this button to set those dates in the schedule.
If a task has not started and you click this button, SSI Tools will detect changes you made to the Forecasted Start and Finish date fields. If you changed the Start date but did not change the finish date, the task will move to the new start date (if possible per task dependencies) and a Start No Earlier Than (SNET) date constraint will be added. Adding a SNET is the correct and best method to "bump" the start of a task forward even if its predecessors would allow it to start earlier. If you add a Forecasted Finish date and did not change the Forecasted Start date, a Finish No Earlier Than (FNET) date constraint is added. If you change both dates, SSI Tools will calculate the duration needed to span the start and finish date and will change the task's duration accordingly and add a SNET if needed.
This button will evaluate the current dates relative to the project status date and set them as Actual or Forecasted for you. If you click this button, Forecasted Start/Finish dates may be set as Actual dates without requiring you to place those entries on the Actual side of the date entry fields.
This button only functions if the AutoSplit option is set in the project. If AutoSplit is used, the unfinished portion of an in progress task is moved to the next available working date after the project's status date.
