Purpose of '% Complete' field

I'm almost embarrassed to ask, but what is the purpose of the '% Complete' field? The mouse-over on the field heading states that it is "...the percentage of the task's duration that has been completed."
Therefore, is it simply a field to indicate what percentage of a task's expected duration has elapsed? e.g. if we have a task expected to take 10 days and 5 days have passed, % Complete = 50%? If it's this simple, why not have it auto-update
every time the project file is opened? What is the point of having to manually enter values in '% Complete' or 'Actual Duration' to update this field? And, in the example above, why would someone ever want to enter anything other than 50%,
e.g. 75%, if only 5 days of the tasks expected 10 days of duration have elapsed?
For a seemingly simple field, it raises a lot of questions as to why one would ever want to use it... '% Work Complete' seems a lot more intuitive, yet '% Complete' seems integrated into more base functionality, such as progress bars on Gantt charts.
Thoughts anyone?
jjmclell
jjmclell

Well, I suppose your assumption that it conveys important information is incorrect. Or at least, it conveys what it is, and no more. Maybe you should ask the typical PM what he gets out of it. If he is unaware of what it means or measures and/or if he is
reading something into it that isn't there, then that's hardly the fault of an innocent number.
The % Complete field is no more or less obscure than any of the others. It's just one of them, and it is usually well and truly buried in the tracking table, out of the way. The problem occurs when people insert it into the entry table and start putting
numbers into it (based on what?).
The task bar is not like a thermometer. Its length is duration on a timescale. The progress indicator on it can't (sensibly) be anything except duration, and that duration is from the actual start to the complete through date. You can see this in the definition
of the bar in format, bar styles. You can't (sensibly) overlay a progress bar expressed as % work on top of a bar which is duration. You may as well try to overlay a "progress" bar which is the cost represented as a fraction of the duration. It's
length would be:
duration1 = (actual cost/total cost) x duration.
You could use this fraction of the duration in a formula to calculate a custom start1 and custom finish1, where start1 = actual start and finish1 = actual start + duration1. Then you could format a thin bar style to go from start1 to finish1. So although
its technically possible (I've done it) it is a lot of effort for no useful result.
The thin black progress bar is most sensible when it is seen as duration and nothing else. It is perfectly meaningful and intuitive if you know what it means, and nonsense if you think it means something else.
Intuition is over-rated, it is so often wrong. For example, intuition must be what makes people think that planning backwards from a finish date is a good idea.
In what way do you use 5 complete for reporting? I see almost no use in reporting progress in terms of % complete, but everyone asks for it. I guess it gives them comfort but it does not give them much information, except what they read into it.

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Project professional 2010: Physical % Complete field does not roll-up to the summary tasks

Hi,
I have a project plan which I need to set the physical % complete fields of it in order to use it for earned value over time report. I have assigned costed resources to come of the tasks, set all project task's earned value method to physical % complete,
and finally set a baseline. However, the physical % complete still does not get calculated for the summary tasks! It is always zero!
I have created another project with only 3 tasks and 3 resources, did the same as above, and was able to get calculated values for the physical % complete.
I followed the same procedure in both projects. In one I was able to get the physical % complete value of the summary tasks while it was always zero in the other! What may be the problem?
Regards,
George

Hi Julie,
This is what I am seeing as necessary to make Physical % complete roll up to the summary level task.
BEFORE tasks are entered, set the "Default Task Earned Value method" to Physical % complete. File > Options, Advanced. This will set both the summary and detail tasks to that method.
Add tasks
Add resources with costs.
Assign resources to tasks.
Baseline the file
Take a look at the Tracking table and enter progress in the Physical % complete field for subtasks. The value should roll up.
Sadly I don't know of anyway to force the change after the tasks have been added. You can certainly add the Earned Value Method field to a task view to confirm all is set - but I have never been able to switch mid-flight and get it to work correctly.
I did, however, just try an experiment. I created a file that did not work correctly - Physical % complete was not rolling up. I inserted it into a blank project that had the option set correctly without linking. After a bit of tweaking
(outdenting all tasks to be able to delete the "extra summary task", saving a baseline), it now appears to be working correctly.
I hope this helps.

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Gurus,
I am looking for the attribute which corresponds to the task's 'Percent Complete' field. I intend creating an Evaluation Layout with 'Percent Complete' as one of the columns. Just not able to find out.
Please suggest.
Thanks and Regards.

Hi Zhenbo,
Thanks for responding.
I did try 'Work Complete'. I have a scenario wherein, for a task, the 'Work' is 50 hrs. 'Confirmed' is 25 hrs. 'Remaining Work' is 25 hrs. By this, I should get 50% as the 'Work Complete'. I get 0 in Evaluations.
There's another field 'Percent Complete'. This is what I was looking for. I inentded rolling up the values for each task in a phase to the phase and finnaly to the project. But having not found the 'percent Complete' for the task, I am not able to proceed.
Thanks and Regards.

Customizing Task type (Status and Completed fields)

We have created our own "MDAction" custom type. The primary reason is that we need different values of "Status", and we dont want to mess with the built in "Task".
We have created lists based on MDAction and it works fine but we have one issue:
The users wants the behavior with Date in red when over due. Fine.
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Hi Jorgen,
According to your description, my understanding is that you want to remove ‘Completed’ column and make the Due Date red when the date is due.
As a workaround, you can customize the task form with InfoPath, and remove the ‘Completed’ column in the form view. For the Due Date with Red, you can create a rule for the Due Data column, the rule is like:
I hope this helps.
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Forum Support
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Redirect to 3 diffrent pages based on value in the Auto complete field.

Hi Friends,
I am using an "Auto complete field" in a page for searching(Apex version 4.0). But i need to get values from 3 tables and when clicking on the value redirect to any of the 3 pages based on the value.
For example i am having 3 tables. 1.Customers 2.Sites 3.Employees. When i enter 'c' in the search field i need to get values from 3 tables to be listed in that "auto complete" field. i.e, if i am having customer with name 'cusotmer1', 'customer2' and site with names 'cisc1','cisc2' and employees with name'cid1','cid2' ; when i enter 'c' in the auto complete field all 6 values must be listed in the "auto complete" field and when clicking on 'customer1'/'customer2' need to redirect to page 'customer'. When clicking on 'cisc1'/'cisc2' redirect to "site" when clicking on 'cid1'/'cid2' redirect to employees page. Is there any way to achieve this. Please help.
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Nav

Hi Nav,
OK - on my page 1, I have a "Text Field with autocomplete" item called P1_SELECTION. The List of Values definition setting for this is:
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On page 1, I have a normal SUBMIT button.
Then I have two branches:
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Branch Type: Branch to Page or URL
Branch Point: On Submit: After Processing (After Computation, Validation, and Processing)
Target Type: Page in this Application
Page: 2 (the employee edit page)
Clear Cache: 2
Set these items: P2_ENAME
With these values: &P1_SELECTION.
Condition Type: Exists (SQL query returns at least one row)
Expression 1:
SELECT 1
FROM DUAL
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Branch Type: Branch to Page or URL
Branch Point: On Submit: After Processing (After Computation, Validation, and Processing)
Target Type: Page in this Application
Page: 3 (the department edit page)
Clear Cache: 3
Set these items: P3_DNAME
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Condition Type: Exists (SQL query returns at least one row)
Expression 1:
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Item Name: P2_EMPNO
Type: SQL Query (return single value)
Computation Point: Before Header
Computation:
SELECT EMPNO
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WHERE ENAME || ' (Employee)' = :P2_ENAME Condition Type: Exists (SQL query returns at least one row)
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SELECT 1
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Type: SQL Query (return single value)
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Percent complete field

HI Gurus,
I am Brand new to cProjects.
My task is in a project there are different tasks. when user set the task status to Complete in Basic Data TAB, then the Percentage of completion field in Additional data TAB should set to 100%.
Is anybody come across this kind of issue.
I came to know that a workflow object will trigger when user change the status.
Help me regarding this.
Regards
Giri.

Hi Giri,
Make sure you are passing the correct filter to DPR_EVENTS.
In the case you have mentioned the filter should be:
Event: COMPLETED
Class: CL_DPR_CLASS_O
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Regards,
Reema.
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Regards
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Sai,
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