so when I created the original video five years ago I got a lot of feedback
that the screen recording was not clear enough for people to understand
so anyway today's video is a recreation of that older video hopefully this time
the screen recording is clear because I'm using a different software and also I was
getting a lot of comments can can you show this in MS Project 2016
some people have comments that the formula was giving error I received a
lot of feedback that the formula did not work at the summary task level so I'm gonna
show it today so nothing changed from a formula or step perspective I'm gonna
show it today so you guys can follow along with me and understand what
exactly you need to know so I'm just gonna create a new simple project let's
open a blank project we will set the project start date today's first so let
me go back to him Monday 22nd will create a two week project starting
October 22nd and the current date is said so that's set under the project
information section we call it a two week project week one we have day one
day two day three day four day five so I'm just gonna copy for the second week
and paste it and we call the second week as week two all this is part of the
two-week project so on the task I'm gonna intend it and then the first five
days goes under week 1 and the second five days goes under b2
all this has one day duration so I'm just gonna select all that go to
information and say duration is one day I'm also gonna link all this tasks so
click on the link so it's sequential II followed one after another so that is
just to keep things simple and now we have the basic project structure so
before we go into next projects and copy the formula one thing to ensure is that
you have baselined the project so I'm gonna go to project and set baseline
this is very critical because all the calculations are done based on the
baseline dates so just make sure you baseline the project because I'm just
gonna exactly mimic what you guys are gonna do copy pasting the formula right
I just want to show that the formula works whether it's MS Project 2010 2013
or 2016 it's all the same I have not changed anything and I just wanna show
you a series so that you guys can follow along I think the previous video was not
clear enough from a screen capture perspective so I'm not going to explain
the details put in here I'm just gonna make it faster copy paste the formula
and as I do I'm gonna explain you all these things so how to do it and the
formula so in order to do it you need to basically create a new column number as
the format and call it as duration in days and then I'm just gonna copy paste
this copy go to the project and then we said
we want a new column called number I'm gonna right-click click on custom fields
rename they said we wanna call it as duration in days and click on formula
radio button and then just copy paste the formula and click OK click OK and
then ok so we just completed the step one right so you know whatever you are
seeing interation in days should match to what you have here because if you
change this to two days it should automatically change to two and the
summary also should show six instead of zero so I'm gonna change it back to one
the reason it did not change is because we did not apply the formula for the
summary task so you can't go back to custom fields and then we did the
formula but then you have to ensure that you are using the formula for the
summary rows so click on use formula and then click OK now you can see the
summary tasks also has the formula applied so it matches to the duration on
the MS Project so duration minimis project is stored as in minutes even
though displays here as days it is actually stored in minutes and that's
the reason why we have to copy paste the formula and convert into days so this is
the formula to convert the duration which is told natively in minutes into
days so that's all what this step is now if you go back to the website the step
two is to calculate the elapsed so again we are to insert a new number
to column call it elapsed days and copy/paste this formula so this is where
most of you were getting error as I get a lot of feedback that this formula is
not working so just watch carefully here and you can see what error I'm getting
and how you can resolve it so I'm gonna copy the formula and we'll select a new
column for number two and rename it as elapsed days so go to the MS project
right click number insert a new number column I'm gonna go to custom fields
rename it as elapsed days click OK and then come to formula click the formula
button just paste it and click OK so here I also got the error that the
formula has some issue so click OK and what it does is it's not the error in
the syntax but for some reason you just have to retype in a way where the error
is highlighted so click on dad just retype the same thing click OK and it
works and click OK now here is where you see error right so the reason you're
seeing error is now it is calculating the elapsed days and it doesn't have a
reference it doesn't know what is my reference point so what I mean by that
is if you go to project information you have to set the status date so by
default it's not applicable so just choose today's date so today is November
1st for me being on that click okay now you see the
elapsed days column is showing up again it's not working at the summary tasks
level so again right-click go to custom fields and under the summary summary
rows option use formula and that should take care of it so what it is doing is
it is comparing your baseline date and calculating how many days is already
over right so today's November first so it's it's stating that we have completed
nine days of the project because it's November 1st and it's gonna end on 2nd
so as per the plan dates we already consumed nine days so that's what this
column is now we are done with if we are done with the second step right so at
any point you can go back and say ok let me calculate the elapsed days as off
let's say October 23rd it should be only two days right so you click on the
status date and you say it's today's October 23rd you see the elapsed days is
going back to two days so that's how it is calculating the elapsed tapes based
on the status date so just make sure that you are setting the status they
tried to have the calculations correctly now going back to website for the final
step which is step number three not the final step so here we are actually
calculating the planned percentage complete so again the formula is simple
number two divided by number one insert a new column called number three just
rename it go to custom fields rename planned percentage okay
click the formula radio button click formula and say you can copy paste by
the way I'm just gonna type number two divided by number one okay and then
apply to summary row okay and now you have the planned percentage complete so
it saying it's ninety percent complete the actual percentage may not be ninety
but this is what we are calculating right if we would have followed the plan
baseline dates what person date should the project be in at certain date now
the next and last final step is just to format this into a percentage type of
field so it has to be a text so I'm gonna click that again coming back to
the web side it said text we are calling it as planned percentage complete and
then copy paste the formula copy and then go here and then paste it right
click custom fields formula and then paste it okay okay again it's showing me
an error so you just have to delete that portion and retype the same thing
there's nothing wrong with the formula for some reason it doesn't take any copy
paste so just retype it and say use formula for summary rows and click OK
and there you have it so once you have this you can always rename it what did
we call in here as planned percentage complete just copy that and right click
custom fields renamed paste okay okay
so this is what we were calculating manually right and the the column that
is available in Emma's project is the percentage complete so you go back to
let's say this is as soft 23rd right you go back to the project information click
on the status date and let's say as of 23rd October 23rd ideally we should have
completed 40% but we have only finished 34% so we are running behind but there
could be chances that some let's say this did not had any dependency on you
know number 7 and let's say he finished this 100% right so if you look at the
overall percentage for the project as of 23rd you were only planned to finish 20%
so we actually finished 27 percent right so that's where you can see the actual
value even though from a date perspective it may not be aligning to
what your complete versus what your planned but at the overall project
perspective you are actually ahead of schedule because you have completed some
tasks that are not scheduled to start until certain date right so so just
wanted to show this example once you have this column defined you can right
click and hide all this so you have this planned percentage versus actual
percentage complete so at any point of time you can compare what was what was
supposed to be the percentage complete if you would have followed the planned
dates against the actual percentage complete so I hope this helped you guys
and if you like this video give me a thumbs up and consider subscribing to
this channel for more videos like this all right take care guys