Confused with Progress points in MS Project 2007 Professional

[THE=protector]

I’ve been working with progress points in Gantt Chart view of MS Project 2007 Professional since long. I’ve attached a screenshot of my works viz; Overall 1(WBS=1) and SS(WBS=2) which includes Start, finish and % Complete same(75%). But the progress points are not aligned in a vertical straight line. I would appreciate prompt solutions.

[Bao]

I was wise of you to include the screenshot in your question. Many don’t. Anyways, I think, your project report is not very conventional or proper. It is senseless to use another independent task to keep a track of progress of tasks. Another mistake is that you are believing the visual indicator and not the calculation of the software.

You should first set up a proper WBS structure with an apt summary task, I guess that’ll be enough as a solution to your problem.

[Jona-thon]

In my opinion, you shouldn’t be using progress lines at all. The most recommended practice would be to save a baseline and keep updating your tasks regularly. This practice will make sure that there is no completed task in future and no incomplete task in past. This will yield better tracking and status reporting including earned value and seeing your critical path (assuming you have links between tasks).

[Adrut]

I was wise of you to include the screenshot in your question. Many don’t. Anyways, I think, your project report is not very conventional or proper. It is senseless to use another independent task to keep a track of progress of tasks. Another mistake is that you are believing the visual indicator and not the calculation of the software.

You should first set up a proper WBS structure with an apt summary task, I guess that’ll be enough as a solution to your problem.

I would like to make one thing clear; Overall 1 is not a summary task and cannot be relied upon to summarize the information in tasks 5,6,7 and 8. Tasks 4 and 12 are summary tasks. For project summary tasks turn it on through Tools>Options>View.

[THE=protector]

I am truly obliged to all of you for helping me out of this. I would be grateful, if you can please help me with another query of mine. I still don’t understand how is the progress points of the summary task placed in the Gannt chart graph. Is it true that the progress point of summary task depends on its children?

[Uttran]

The progress points of summary task are calculated in the following manner:
%Complete for SS = (Sum of Subtask Actual Durations) / (Sum of Subtask Durations) = (2 + 2 + 2 + 0)/ (2 + 2 + 2 + 2) = 0.75

As it is seen on the Gantt Chart , Project uses the Summary Progress value to place progress point on a Summary task.