Progress

Contents

The progress of a project shows the degree to which the estimated time of completion of the project is being fulfilled, and the progress of a task indicates the degree to which it is being fulfilled in terms of estimated completion.

In general, progress cannot be measured automatically; a member of staff with experience or a checklist has to determine the degree of completion of a task or project.

It should be noted that there is a significant difference between the use of hours assigned to a task or project and the degree of progress of that task or project. While the number of used hours may be more or less than they should be, the project may be behind or ahead of its estimated completion on the day that is being monitored. Several possible situations may arise due to these two measurements:

It is possible to compare these possible situations from the planning itself by using information relating to the degree of progress made and also the degree to which the hours have been used. This chapter will deal with the entering of information in order to carry out the monitoring of progress.

The philosophy of the project for monitoring progress is based on the users stating how far they want to monitor the progress of their projects. As a result, if users want to monitor orders, they only have to enter information for level-1 elements. If they want monitoring to be more precise in relation to tasks, they have to enter information about progress at lower levels, and it is the system that transmits all of the data upwards in the hierarchy.

Managing types of progress

All companies have different needs when monitoring project progress, specifically the tasks they consist of. It was therefore necessary to consider the existence of entities in the system called “types of progress”. Users can register the different types of progress in the system to measure a task's progress. For example, a task can be measured in percentage terms, but at the same time, this percentage progress can be translated to progress in Tonnes on the agreed amount with the client.

A type of progress is given a name, a maximum value and a precision value:

The system has two types of default progress:

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Administration of types of progress

Users can create new types of progress in the following way:

Entering progress based on t

Entering progress is done on order elements, but it can also be done using a short cut from the planning tasks. The decision on what type of progress users want to associate with each order element is their own responsibility.

Users can enter a unique and default type of progress for the whole order.

Before carrying out progress measurements, users need to associate the chosen type with the order. For example, progress in percentage terms to measure progress made on the entire task or an agreed progress rate if progress measurements agreed with the client are to be entered in the future.

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Progress entering screen with graphic visualisation.

The following must be done to enter progress measurements:

Comparison of progress with an order element

Users can compare graphically how much progress is being made on the orders with the measurements taken. All types of progress have a column with a check button (called "Show"). When this is marked, the progress chart of measurements taken is shown on the order element.

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Comparison of several kinds of progress.