Tracking modes for updating tasks

From Outlook, there are up to four tracking modes available for you to view, and they correlate to the tracking mode options for Project Professional and the to-do list feature in Project Web Access. In Project Professional, there are three tracking modes for reporting status on tasks:

• Hours of work done per day or per week
• Actual work done and work remaining
• Percent of work complete

To-do lists provide one tracking method only for reporting task status: Percent of Work Complete. If you have a To-do list in Project Web Access, when you import tasks to Outlook for a given time period, these To-do list tasks will be displayed on your calendar as appointments along with your other Project Professional tasks.

Typically, tracking modes are set by the administrator in Project Web Access or the project manager in Project Professional. If you have To-do list tasks in addition to Project Professional tasks, expect to work in multiple tracking modes from Outlook.

Hours of work done per day or per week – timesheet view

This timesheet, timephased tracking method provides project and resource managers the greatest level of detail about how work is being completed and how much work remains. If you are an attorney, consultant, or contractor required to track the hours you work per day or per week, this timesheet tracking method lets you enter actuals hourly.

Figure 11: Hours of work done per day or per week (timesheet).

Note that the timesheet view does not work in offline scenarios. A connection to Project Web Access is required to generate an active view of the timesheet. In addition, if managed time periods are set in Project Web Access (a new Project Professional feature), it is required that you track actual work done by day or week using this timesheet view.

Actual work done and work remaining

To track projects based on how much work is completed compared with how much work remains, you can use the method of Actual Work Done and Work Remaining. If you know, for example, that a task will take more or less time than originally planned, you can adjust the remaining hours, as shown in Figure 12 (the grayed-out areas are not available for editing).

When you adjust the remaining work for a task, Project Professional calculates the work and percent of work complete using actual work values according to the following formulas:

• Work = Remaining Work + Actual Work
• Percent Work Complete = Actual Work / Work

This tracking method is useful if you do not need the extra overhead or details provided by the editing capabilities of reporting by hours per day.

Figure 12: Actual Work Done and Work Remaining tracking mode.

Percent of work complete

By specifying the percent of work complete between 0% (no work completed) and 100% (all work completed), you are in effect providing Project Professional (and your manager) an estimate of how much work remains on that task. Also recalculated is actual work done.

The advantages of using Percent of Work Complete tracking method (Figure 12) are that it’s simple to use, and actual work and remaining work are calculated for you. Project Professional uses the following formulas to recalculate based on the percentage you enter:

• Actual Work = Work * Percent Work Complete
• Remaining Work = Work – Actual Work

Like the Actual Work Done and Work Remaining tracking method, Percent of Work Complete is helpful if you want to track the status of your work closely, but not by hours per day to account for variances in daily output or work style.

Use caution: When entering actuals by using the Percent of Work Complete method, it is critical that you clarify with your manager what basis you’re working against – the original total duration of the task, or the new total duration based on the last update you sent to Project Web Access.

Figure 13: Percent of Work Complete tracking mode.

To-do list

A to-do list always tracks by percent complete. To update a to-do list task, you simply open the to-do list appointment in your Outlook Calendar, adjust the percentage, and send the update back to Project Web Access when you’re ready. If you click Go To Timesheet, you can view all your tasks (Project Professional and to-do list) in timesheet view in Project Web Access.

Figure 14: To-do list tracking mode.

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Methods for viewing task information