About Task Percent Complete, Actual Start and Actual Finish

Certain task attributes can change dynamically when you update a task, including these three:

• Actual Start is the date on which work on a task is started.
  This value can differ from the Planned Start date.
  
• Actual Finish is the date on which work on a task is complete.
  This value can differ from the Planned Finish date.
  
• Task Percent Complete reflects how much work has been done on a task.
  % complete is calculated according to a formula that includes the work done on the task and the estimate of remaining work.
  
  For details on how task percent complete is derived, see Percent Complete Calculations.
  
  Note: You may be able to manually update percent complete. Your ability to edit task % Complete for an assigned task depends on your organizations Task Tracking settings. See ETC Overview for more information.
  

Task percent complete appears on timesheets, task forms (Update Task for example), and can be included on the Task List and in Task custom views.

Updates to Tasks

When you update a task or save a Timesheet with a task update on it (see Important note below), the following rules apply:

• If % Complete is set to 100 and there are no work entries for the task:
• If Actual Start is blank, Actual Start is set to the Planned Start date.
• If Actual Finish is blank, Actual Finish is set to the Planned Finish date.
  
  

• If % Complete is set to 100 and there are work entries for the task:
• If Actual Start is blank, Actual Start is set to the first (earliest in the calendar) work entry date.
• If Actual Finish is blank, Actual Finish is set to the last (latest in the calendar) work entry date that has work associated with it (an update without actual work is ignored when setting Actual Finish, unless Actual Finish is specified).
• If Actual Finish is specified in the update, Actual Finish is set to either the last work entry date with work associated with it, or to the Actual Finish date provided, which ever is later.
  

• If % Complete is set to a value between 0 and 99 ( >= 0 and < 100) and there are no work entries:
• If Actual Start is blank, Actual Start is set to the Planned Start date.
• Actual Finish is cleared unless a value is included in the update, in which case Actual Finish is set to that value and the task is considered complete (% complete is set to 100 or ETC to 0).
  

• If % Complete is set to a value between 0 and 99 (>= 0 and < 100) and there are work entries:
• If Actual Start is blank, Actual Start is set to the date of the first work entry.
• Actual Finish is cleared unless a value is included in the update, in which case Actual Finish is set to either the last work entry date with work associated with it, or to the Actual Finish date provided, which ever is later and the task is considered complete (% complete is set to 100 or ETC to 0).
  

• If % Complete set to 0:
• Actual Start is not changed.
• Actual Finish is cleared if not blank.

Updates to Parent Tasks

When you update a child task or save a Timesheet with a task update on it, the following rules apply for any parent task:

• A parent task Actual Start date is set to:
• The Planned Start of the earliest scheduled child task if that task has no work done on it (if there are no work entries and % Complete is 0).
• The Actual Start of the earliest scheduled child task if work has been done on that task.
• If you manually set Actual Start and Actual Finish when updating a task, the manually set dates take precedence over dates derived using the above rules.

Important:

If your organization is configured to use Timesheets, values for Actual Start, Actual Finish and Actual Work are not updated until a timesheet is approved.

An organization is configured to use Timesheets if the administrator has configured the Time Tracking Settings for either Timesheets only or Both Timesheet and Task Updates - see Editing Timesheet Properties in the Administrator section of this Help.

When an organization is configured to use Timesheets:

• If timesheet approval is not required, Actual Start, Actual Finish and Actual Work do not change until a timesheet is submitted.
• If timesheet approval is required, Actual Start, Actual Finish and Actual Work do not change until a timesheet is submitted and approved.

Related Topics:

• ETC Overview—About ETC (Estimate to Complete) and how PPM uses it.
• Percent Complete Calculations—About percent complete calculations in PPM.
• Updating a Task—How to update a task.

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