Project managers have to monitor a project’s progress throughout its entire life cycle. They need to be able to track the actual dates, actual duration and actual cost for the project, in addition to the planned dates and planned cost.
One of the new features available in SharePoint Project Management Central™ R2.0 is the ability to update a project’s progress in order to make sure that it is on track—providing maximum project-management capability.
Updating a Project’s Progress
Before you update your project’s progress, make sure to enter the Budget Cost and Budget Work for the project. Follow steps 1-3 in this blog post to learn how.
At the project site, go to the Tasks > Progress Management tab.
The Progress Management tab has two Web Parts that allow you to update progress: the Update Task Progress Web Part and the Update Project Cost & Schedule Web Part.
Update Task Progress
Use this Web Part to get the Actual Start Date and Actual Due Date for the project tasks. Use this Web Part after you capture the baseline, not before.
To update task progress:
- Create tasks and allocate resources to the tasks. Make sure that task information is updated and recalculated in the All Tasks tab before updating the progress.
- Click Update Progress Information.
- The Actual Start Date and Actual Due Date will update as follows:
- Actual Start Date and Actual Due Date will be updated based on the Start Date and the Due Date if the % Complete is equal to 100.
- Actual Start Date will be updated using the Start Date only if the % Complete is greater than 0 because that means that the task has started and is in progress.
- Actual Start Date and Actual Due Date will not be updated if the % Complete is equal to 0 because that means that the task has not started.
Update Project Cost & Schedule
Use this Web Part to view the project’s Actual Duration, Actual Cost and Actual Work. Update the project cost and schedule before you baseline to get the Project Cost and Project Work. After the tasks are started and you have the tasks’ Actual Cost and Actual Work, update the project cost and schedule again to get the Project Actual Duration, Project Actual Cost and Project Actual Work.
To update project cost and schedule:
- Update the project’s Budget Cost and Budget Work. Follow steps 1-3 in this blog post to learn how.
- Make sure that the tasks are updated clicking Recalculate in the All Tasks tab.
- Click Update Project Cost & Schedule.
- The fields for Project Actual Duration, Project Actual Cost and Project Actual Work are now populated.
Read other blog posts in the PM Central R2.0 use case series, and keep checking the Bamboo Team Blog for more use cases, such as how to set the baseline.
The PM Central team wants to make PM Central the best project management and collaboration tool available for SharePoint. We’re interested in your feedback, and we welcome your comments or questions in the PM Central forum.
Interested in PM Central R2.0? Get a free 30-day trial, or sign up for a free webinar.
