Body
This introduction article will help users understand how plan percent complete values are calculated in different circumstances in Work Management. The user must have access to Work Management and the specific Project application.
Overview
This article gives an overview of how fields such as percent complete, remaining hours, and estimated at completion (EAC) are updated and/or calculated as needed.
Where to Find This
The most extensive view of project details can be viewed following this path:
- Work Management > View Applications > [select a Project application] > [select a project] > Plans
You can also view plan details following these paths:
- Project Application Admins: Work Management > View Applications > [select a Project application] > [select a project] > Plans
- Global Admins: TDAdmin > Applications > [select a Project application] > [select a project] > Plans
- Client Portal > Projects > [select project] > Plans > [select plan]
Percent Complete Versus Remaining Hours
One of the key drivers for these fields is whether the associated project is configured to update tasks based on percent complete or remaining hours.
When a project is set to update tasks based on percent complete, the remaining hours are automatically calculated by multiplying the estimated hours by the completion percentage.
When a project is set to update tasks based on remaining hours, the percent complete is automatically calculated based on the remaining hours divided by the estimated hours. If the remaining hours exceed the estimated hours, the percent complete is capped at 0%.
One exception to this rule is when the estimated hours are set to zero; in that case, the percent complete is specified during the update process rather than the remaining hours.
In addition, when changing the estimated hours for a task that uses remaining hours, the change in estimated hours (positive or negative) is also applied to the remaining hours if the task is not yet complete.
Furthermore, checking out a plan, making changes to the remaining hours on a task, and then undoing the checkout does not undo all the remaining hours changes you made to the plan.
Regarding the percent complete or remaining hours, this is the intended behavior. The percent complete (or remaining hours) can be updated in Work Management or the Client Portal, and also by users who don't have permission to check in/check out plans. Therefore, we don't want to enforce check-in/check-out rules for updating the percent complete or remaining hours for a task on a plan. While this may seem counterintuitive when working from the plan, it allows multiple people to update the plan with their progress at the same time.
Estimated at Completion (EAC)
For all tasks (parent or otherwise), the Estimated at Completion (EAC) is calculated using the following formula:
Task Actual Hours + Task Remaining Hours
For parent tasks, this means this will roll up both the actual and remaining hours of its children.
Non-Parent Tasks
For tasks that are not parent tasks (meaning they have no tasks nested beneath them), the calculations above apply for percent complete and remaining hours.
Parent Tasks
Percent Complete
The percent complete for parent tasks is calculated in several different ways, depending on whether any of the parents' children have estimated hours specified.
If all child tasks are complete, the percent complete will be 100%. Otherwise, the rules below will apply.
With Estimated Hours
If there is at least one child task with estimated hours specified (the most common case), the parent's percent complete will use the following formula:
Sum(For each child task: Child percent complete * Child estimated hours / Parent's total estimated hours)
Effectively, this means that each child's task completion percentage is weighted by the estimated hours for that task. This also means that if at least one child task has estimated hours specified, any child tasks without estimated hours will not be included in the overall completion percentage.
Without Estimated Hours
If, however, none of a parent's child tasks have estimated hours, the following formula is used:
- Sum(For each child task: Child percent complete * Child working days / Parent's total working days)
Note that the parent's total working days will sum up the range of working days for each child task, even if there is overlap between date ranges for the child tasks.
If no working days or estimated hours are specified and at least one child task is incomplete, the parent task's percent complete will be set to 0.
Remaining Hours
Remaining hours for parent tasks are calculated using the following formula:
- Sum(For each child task: Child remaining hours)
Plans
Percent Complete
Like parent tasks, the plan's overall percent complete is calculated differently depending on whether any tasks have estimated hours.
With Estimated Hours
When at least one main-level task has estimated hours defined, the plan's percent complete is calculated using the following formula:
- Sum(For each root-level task: root-level percent complete * root-level estimated hours / Total estimated hours)
Like how the percent complete for parent tasks is calculated, if there is at least one root-level task with estimated hours, any root-level task without estimated hours will be excluded from the above calculation.
Without Estimated Hours
If none of the plan's main-level tasks have estimated hours, the plan's percent complete is calculated using the following formula:
- Average(For each root-level task: root-level task’s percent complete)
Remaining Hours
Remaining hours for plans are calculated using the following formula:
- Sum(For each root-level task: Root remaining hours)
Summary Information
When viewing a list of plans (such as in the "Plans" tab in the project management console or in desktop modules), the top-level completion percentages and remaining hours are aggregated using the same basic formula but using an optimized process.
This may result in small discrepancies, most commonly due to rounding, between how the plan is displayed in a summary view and how it is displayed individually.