Record progress  At this point in the schedule you need to enter progress or some other change in task status in the project plan and communicate that change to team members.

 Note   If you assign resources to tasks you can track task durations and start and finish dates, as well as costs and work at both the task and assignment levels. If you don't assign resources to task, you cannot track work at the assignment level, and you must record progress manually.

Record progress if resources are not assigned to tasks

Click all of the following that apply:

• Update the percentage that a task is complete to indicate how much progress, in terms of duration (duration: The total span of active working time that is required to complete a task. This is generally the amount of working time from the start to finish of a task, as defined by the project and resource calendar.), has been made in completing a task. If no resources are assigned to tasks, use this method to indicate progress. Be aware, however, that percentage of completion (percent complete: A field that you use to enter or display how much of a task has been completed. This value is expressed as the percentage of the task duration that has been completed.), actual duration (actual duration: The amount of time a task has been in progress. When you enter the actual duration of a task, Project uses this value to calculate the remaining duration according to the formula Remaining Duration = Duration - Actual Duration.), and remaining duration (remaining duration: The amount of time left to work on a task before the task is completed. This is calculated as follows: Remaining Duration = Duration - Actual Duration.) are interlocking quantities; updating one of them will probably cause the values of the others to change.
• Update an actual duration to indicate how long it actually took to complete a task, as opposed to the scheduled duration.
• Update remaining duration if you know that a task will take more or less time than Project calculated.
• Set a task to 100 percent complete to show that a single task has been completed. Use this procedure to update one or just a few tasks that have been completed recently.
• Update actual start and finish dates to see whether a task has started or finished later or earlier than planned, as well as the impact of the actual dates on resources and the schedule.
• Update actual work to indicate how much work has actually been accomplished on a task to date.
• Update actual costs manually to track the real costs of tasks or resource assignments (assignment: A specific resource that is assigned to a particular task.).

Record progress if resources are assigned to tasks

Click all of the following that apply:

• Use Project Server to publish new or changed assignments if you want to inform team members of schedule changes that may affect them, such as a new task start date or an increase in the amount of time they're assigned to a task.
• Use Project Server to request progress information from team members if you want to collect task status information using Microsoft Office Project Web Access 2003 or your e-mail system, and then add that information to your project plan all at once.
• Update the project plan by using Project Server if you agree with the task status information that a team member has sent to you and you want to add that information to the project plan.
• Manually update actual work to indicate how much work has been accomplished on a task to date.
• Manually update the percentage of work complete to indicate how much work has been performed on a task, expressed as a percentage of the whole, which can help you track actual progress.
• Manually update remaining duration if you know that a task will take more or less time than Project calculated.
• Manually set a task to 100 percent complete if you want to specify that the task is complete.
• Manually update total actual work for resource assignments if you want to stay firmly on top of the schedule and budget (budget: The estimated cost of a project that you establish in Project with your baseline plan.), rather than tracking work at the task level.
• Manually update timephased actual work for resource assignments when you have an especially tight deadline or budget. You can track work at a very detailed level by updating the amount of actual work performed by each resource in a time interval you specify, such as per day, weekly, or monthly.
• Manually update actual start and finish dates to see whether a task has started or finished later or earlier than planned, as well as the impact of the actual dates on resources and the schedule. If you enter an actual finish date for a task, Project calculates its percent complete to be 100%.
• Manually update actual costs to track the real costs of task or resource assignments.

 Respond to uncompleted, new, or changed work  You need to make sure that your team accomplishes all planned work and that you can flexibly respond to any unplanned changes in work.

Click all of the following that apply:

• Check variances from the plan by using earned value analysis if you want to see how much of the budget should have been spent on tasks based on the amount of work done so far, and the baseline cost (baseline cost: The original project, resource, and assignment cost as shown in the baseline plan. The baseline cost is a snapshot of the cost at the time when the baseline plan was saved.) for the task, assignment (assignment: A specific resource that is assigned to a particular task.), or resource.
• View work over time by seeing it broken down by time period, for example, by day.
• Adjust the amount of remaining work when more or less work remains on a task than was planned. For example, if you determine that there's less remaining work than planned, you might reduce the number of hours a resource works on the task.
• Respond to an interruption in a task to show when work will continue on the remaining portion of the task.
• Update remaining duration if you know that the task will take more or less time than the calculated remainder.
• Update remaining work on a task to adjust the amount of time a resource is assigned to the remaining portion of a task, or if you want to replace one resource with another for the remaining portion.
• Reschedule uncompleted work to make sure that there's no work scheduled for dates that have already passed, and that all remaining work is scheduled for future dates only.

• Add a task if the scope (scope: The combination of all project goals and tasks, and the work required to accomplish them.) of project work has increased and you need to track the new work.

 Update original estimates  If you find that actual project progress is so different from the baseline estimates as to make comparison between the two meaningless, you need to update the original estimates.

Click all of the following that apply:

• Save or update a baseline plan if you haven't already done so and you want to compare the information in your baseline plan (baseline plan: The original project plans [up to 11 per project] used to track progress on a project. The baseline plan is a snapshot of your schedule at the time that you save the baseline and includes information about tasks, resources, and assignments.) with your up-to-date schedule later in the project. Saving a baseline enables you to identify and solve discrepancies and plan more accurately for similar future projects.
• Save an interim plan to save a set of start and finish dates that you can compare with the baseline plan or the current plan.
• Update an interim plan to add a task to or change the start or finish date of a task in an interim plan.
• Save a version of a project for comparison, modeling, and archiving purposes.