Task Progress

The progress of a task is indicated by its % complete attribute. A value of 0% means that there has been no progress on the task while 100% means that the task has been completed. Celoxis rolls-up the percent completes of tasks to calculate the percent complete of the project.

% Complete Methods

There are three methods to update a task's % complete. They are described below with an example – assume that we have a task T with resources Joe assigned 40h and Peter assigned 10h to it.

Last % Entered

The % complete of a task is the last % complete entered for that task by any user. This supposes a working model where the the person updating the % complete knows the overall status of that task. In our case, if Joe updates the % complete of to 50% and then Peter updates the % complete to 25. The % complete of T will be 25%.

Weighted Average of % entered by each assigned resource

The % complete of a task will be calculated as a weighed average of the % completes entered by resources assigned to it. This supposes that when a resources enter % completes, they are indicating their how much of their work is complete, not the overall progress of the task. The % complete of the task is calculated as: 

% Complete = (W1×P1 + W2×P2 + ... + Wn×Pn) ÷ (W1 + W2 + ... + Wn)

For all n assignees where Wi is the planned effort and Pi is the % complete of its ith assignee.

Let’s say Joe enters 50% while Peter enters 100%. The % complete of T will be: (50×40 + 100×10) ÷ (40 + 10) = 60%.

Auto-calculated from time logged against the task

In this model, users do not enter the % complete, rather it is calculated based on the time logged against the task. The formula is: 

% Comp = Actual Effort ÷ Planned Effort
Actual effort is the sum of all approved hours for that task.

A few things to note in this model:

  • Users will not be shown the % complete field as that value is calculated.
  • If time logged exceed the planned effort the % will show as 100%.
  • Once a task starts and you think that the task's effort has been over or underestimated, you should decrease or increase the planned effort of the task. Otherwise the task may never show up as completed or may prematurely indicate as completed.

We recommend that this only be used in projects when the time logged will always match the planned effort. E.g. tasks such as “Do 20 hours of research”.

Specifying the % complete method

The default % complete method for tasks can be specified from the project add/edit screen's Advanced tab.

% Complete of Summary Tasks and Projects

% complete of summary tasks and projects is automatically calculated as a weighted average from its descendants as per the formula: 

% Complete = (W1×P1 + W2×P2 + ... + Wn×Pn) ÷ (W1 + W2 + ... + Wn)
For all n leaf-level descendants where Wi is the work and Pi is the % complete of its ith descendant. If a leaf-level task is unassigned, its duration (in hours) is used instead of its work in the calculation.