Tracking a Project as Scheduled
The simplest approach to tracking progress is to report that the
actual work is proceeding exactly as planned. For example, if the
first month of a five-month project has elapsed and all its tasks have
started and finished as scheduled, you can quickly record this in the
Update Project dialog box. When you record progress through a specific
date, Project calculates actual duration, remaining duration, actual
costs, and other values up to the date you entered.
In this exercise, you record project actuals by updating work to
a specific date.
-
On the Project tab, in
the Status group, click
Update Project.
The Update Project dialog box appears.
-
Make sure the Update work as
complete through option is selected. In the adjacent
date box, type or select 1/11/12.
-
Click OK.
Project records the completion percentage for the tasks that
were scheduled to start before January 11. It displays that
progress by drawing progress bars in the Gantt bars for
those tasks.
In the Gantt Chart view, the progress bar shows how
much of each task has been completed. Because tasks 2, 3, and 4
have been completed, a check mark appears in the Indicators column
for those tasks, and the progress bars extend through the full
length of those tasks’ Gantt bars. Task 5 is only partially
completed, however.
