Work Status Types

Resources completing work might find that descriptions are easier to understand and/or less intimidating than percentages or remaining hours numbers. Using descriptions instead of numbers requires selecting "Enable work percent complete types" in the project settings Project Settings. The percent complete types (Work Status Types) allow you to define drop-down selections and their related percent complete equivalent. You can define as many or as few types as needed for your work environment.

TIP: Remember, percent completes, whether they are entered or mapped using Work Status Types, are used in your earned value and earned hours calculations. A rule of thumb for how many Work Status Types you need is the longer your tasks tend to be the more statuses you need.

E.g. If your tasks are typically less than a week long, you may only need 3, say Not Started, In-Progress, and Done. If your tasks are 2 weeks or more, you may need increments of 20 (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%) or even increments of 10. Just come up with names that make sense to your team and tell them to pick the one that most closely reflects where they are on the task

ANOTHER TIP: If you sometimes have tasks get canceled, add a Canceled status. Do not include a % complete value and make the "Task Active State" = No. Tasks in the Canceled status will behave like tasks that are done, but are much more descriptive.

YET ANOTHER TIP FOR SUMMARY TASKS: If you have more than one Work Status Type with the same percent complete (which you can), the summary task will show the Work Status Type that appears last in the Work Status Type list.

Name is a required field. This is the descriptive text users will see in the drop-down.

Work Percent Complete should be a number corresponding to the name field.

Display Order sets the order in which the work percent complete types display for selection in drop-downs and lists. If no value is placed in this field, it defaults to 0 and performs an alphanumeric ordering by work type complete type name.

User Updated shows the date the user updated.

Updated Date shows the date the type was updated.

Active displays if the type has been set to active.

Edit and Delete icons on each existing line are used to edit or delete the data in the line.

Save and Cancel icons will always display on one line. The line on which these icons are displayed is either a new percent complete type entry or an existing percent complete type which is currently being edited.