Defining Activity Progress Method—Exercises

Required Data

Creating and Executing Activities

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the data that must be in place before you can perform the exercises below. For this exercise to be meaningful, you need to assign resources to some activities and plan with project deliverables. You will need to approve the project and begin executing the activities. The exercise refers to the example activities in the following table.

1. Create a subproject with at least three activities.
2. Assign resources to the activities, and enter the values for Planned Hours as shown in the table below.
3. Connect tasks and document packages, and enter the values for Planned Hours as shown in the table below.
4. Approve the project and then release the activities.
5. Report progress on these tasks and document packages, as shown in the table below.
6. According to the following table, report some time on the activities through project reporting.
7. Attach a progress template to an activity. 
8. As an alternative to steps 1–7 above, you can use Subproject S10 from Project P101 to perform the exercises below.

General exercise for Building a Project Plan
General exercise for Assigning Resources and Analyzing Resource Capacity
General exercise for Approving and Starting Projects
General exercise for Creating and Connecting Tasks and Using Tasks to Report Progress
General exercise for Connecting Document Packages to Activities and Using Document Packages to Report Progress
General exercise for Reporting Functions

Main Exercise

Purpose: The purpose of these exercises is to show you how to define the activity progress method. You will understand what an activity's calculated progress is based on, depending on which progress method you choose.

Windows:
Project Navigator/Activity
Project Navigator/Resource
Project Navigator/Tasks

Selecting Progress Methods Based on Connected Objects 

1. Open the Project Navigator window.
2. Query for your project.
3. Select Activity 10040 in the project Navigator. This activity has connected tasks and a document package.
4. Click the Tasks tab. Note the planned hours and progress values for each task. 
5. Click the Activity tab.
6. In the Progress Method list, click All Connected Objects. Save your changes.
7. Note that the values in the Calculated Cost Progress and Calculated Hours Progress fields are based on all the connected objects, and any information from activity duration or resources is ignored. The calculated progress is weighted based on the planned hours of each task and document. You should see the following:

Selecting Manual Progress Methods

1. Continue to work on the Activity tab.
2. Select Activity 10050 in the project Navigator.
3. Click the Details tab. Note that there is a progress template connected to this activity.
4. In the Progress Method list, click Template Progress. Save your changes.
5. On the Details tab, enter a progress template step, or select it from the List of Values.
6. Save your changes. Note that the progress corresponding to the selected template step is shown in the Progress Template Step field.
7. Note that the values in the Calculated Cost Progress and Calculated Hours Progress fields is equal to the selected template step progress. If there are any connected objects, the progress of those will not be considered.
8. Select Activity 10020 in the project Navigator.
9. Click the Details tab.
10. Enter a value for manual progress.
11. In the Progress Method list, click Manual. Save your changes.
12. Note that the value that you entered as manual progress is now shown in the Calculated Cost Progress and Calculated Hours Progress fields. If there are any connected objects, their progress is not considered.
13. Select any other method in the Progress Method list. Save your changes.
14. Note that the manual progress value is no longer shown as calculated progress.

Selecting Progress Methods Based on Activity Information

1. Continue to work on the Activity tab.
2. Select Activity 10020 in the project Navigator. This activity has connected tasks and allocated resources. There are ten hours reported on the activity.
3. In the Planned Cost Driver list, click Connected Objects. Save your changes.
4. Click the Hours tab. Note that the value in the Planned Hours column is the sum of the planned hours from the connected tasks and the hours reported on the activity is updated as Committed Hours.
5. In the Planned Cost Driver list, click Activity Resources. Save your changes.
6. On the Hours tab, note that the value in the Planned Hours column is the sum of the planned hours from the allocated resources is also updated to the activity in addition to the planned values from the connected tasks.
7. Note that the value in the Calculated Hours Progress field is calculated based on the total earned value hours compared to the total planned hours. You should see the following:

8. Back in the activity, note the early start and finish date for the activity.
9. In the Progress Method list, select Duration Progress. Save your changes.
10. If the system date is after the early finish date, the progress value in the Calculated Cost Progress and Calculated Hours Progress fields is 100.00% and if the system date is before the early start, the progress value is 0.00%. It is calculated by dividing the elapsed days by the original duration of the activity.