Project Insight can adjust remaining work hours across the remaining duration of a task in the Resource Allocation Report. This feature is called Adjusted Work.
Adjusted Work is useful when you want the report to reflect how much work has already been completed and how much work remains from today through the end of the task schedule.
What Is Adjusted Work?
Adjusted Work uses the task’s remaining work hours and the task’s percent complete to redistribute work across the schedule.
In simple terms:
- Work before today is treated as completed work.
- Remaining work is spread from today through the end of the task schedule.
- Adjusted Work equals the original Work Hours until the task schedule has started.
- After the task has started, Adjusted Work uses progress to show a more realistic remaining workload.
This helps resource allocation reports better reflect the current state of work instead of evenly spreading the original work hours across the entire task duration.
How Does Adjusted Work Calculate Remaining Work?
Adjusted Work equals the remaining work from today through the end of the task schedule.
Work from before today is treated as completed work and divided across the working days from the task start date through the previous working day.
For example, if today is November 12 and the task Testing Revision 21.4 is 75% complete, with a task schedule from November 6 through November 15, Project Insight can adjust the work based on what has already been completed.
In this example:
- The task has 20 total work hours.
- 75% complete means 16 work hours are completed.
- The completed 16 hours are divided across the previous four working days.
- The remaining 4 hours are divided across the four remaining scheduled days.
- The report shows 4 hours per day for completed work and 1 hour per day for the remaining scheduled work.
Step 1: Enable Adjusted Work
Enable the setting in Resource Allocation & Management under Add-ons.
This setting allows Project Insight to calculate and display adjusted work values in resource allocation reporting.
Step 2: Run A Project Resource Allocation Report
Run a generic Project Resource Allocation Report.
Without the Work Adjusted field, Project Insight spreads the assigned work hours evenly across the task duration.
In the example below, Mr. Boss has 11 Work Hours spread over 5 days, which equals 2.2 hours per day.
Step 3: Add Work Adjusted Fields To The Report
Open the report’s Display & Filter Options
Under Row Selections, include:
- Work Adjusted
- Graph By Adjusted Hours
These fields allow the report to show adjusted workload based on task progress instead of only showing the original work spread.
Step 4: Update The Task Work Status
Update the task to a Work Status other than Not Started.
In this example, the task was updated to Almost Done.
After the status is updated, the report reflects the work already completed on Monday and Tuesday, and the remaining work is adjusted across the remaining schedule.
When To Use Adjusted Work
Use Adjusted Work when you want resource reports to show a more accurate picture of remaining workload after tasks have started.
This is especially helpful when:
- Tasks span multiple days.
- Work has already started.
- The task is partially complete.
- You want remaining work to appear only across the remaining task schedule.
- Resource managers need a clearer view of current and upcoming workload.
- Project managers want reports to reflect task progress more accurately.
Best Practices
- Use Adjusted Work when task progress is being updated regularly.
- Make sure task Work Status or percent complete is current before relying on adjusted work reporting.
- Compare standard work hours and adjusted work hours when reviewing resource workload.
- Use Graph By Adjusted Hours when you want the visual report to reflect remaining work.
- Review adjusted work reports during weekly capacity planning or resource allocation meetings.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Using Adjusted Work when task progress is not being updated.
- Assuming adjusted work changes the original task work estimate.
- Forgetting to add both Work Adjusted and Graph By Adjusted Hours to the report.
- Reviewing old task status data and assuming the adjusted report is current.
- Comparing adjusted work across projects where teams update percent complete inconsistently.
Related Note: Manual Leveling Work
If you are familiar with Microsoft Project resource leveling, Project Insight also offers a Manual Leveling Work feature.
Manual Leveling Work is separate from Adjusted Work. Adjusted Work focuses on reporting remaining work based on task progress, while Manual Leveling Work is used for manual control over how work is distributed.
Need More Help?
If you are not sure whether to use Adjusted Work, Manual Leveling Work, or standard work hour reporting, contact your Project Insight administrator or Customer Success representative. You can also get more help at projectinsight.com/support.
Comments
6 comments
Can this function so it calculates the remaining time by the actual hours inputted instead of the work status? And the work status would be auto-calculated based off of the actual hours instead of having to be set manually? Calculating the remaining time based on actual hours inputted instead of the work status is more accurate with how much time is remaining on the task. Is this possible to do?
The "Work Hours Remaining" is based upon the "earned value (hours)" versus the actual hours.
Your suggestion is that the report would use another option, which is currently labeled in report columns as "Var. Work Hours vs Actual." That value can go into negative hours as time entries exceed the planned/estimated hours. For the purposes of the report, I presume that PI would value all work as 100% complete once the variance is 0 or fewer hours.
I agree with Rachel Wood. If the remaining time were calculated by Actual Hours entered, then the task owner doesn't need to remember to go that extra step of setting the Work Status or Percent Complete.
...Because we all know asking a lot of individuals to do an extra step can be challenging.
Thank you for adding this function! It will really help my organization manage resources.
A request:
We also use the Remaining Capacity row to see how much capacity a resource has in the future, so we can estimate whether they would be available for a new project.
We also use the "Over Allocated Work Hours" row to see exactly how much over (10h over or 100h over?).
Currently, when I change the Work Status/Percentage Complete (e.g., from 0% to 30%), both row numbers stay the same.
Would it be possible to have a "Remaining Capacity Adjusted" row and an "Over Allocated Work Hours Adjusted" row? Then, for the purpose of my organization, we would just use all the "Adjusted" display options.
This will greatly increase the accuracy of resource allocation for tasks with long durations, without having individuals manually closing old tasks and opening new ones each month.
One more observation:
Right now, if I mark a task 90% complete, it will distribute 90% of the time evenly across the duration that has past, and then distribute the remaining 10% of the time across whatever duration is left.
HOWEVER, if I mark the task as 100% complete with duration left on the calendar, the report displays as if the task is 0% complete (time evenly distributed across the entire duration of the task).
Shouldn't the report show 100% of the time be distributed across the duration that has past? And zero time going forward from the day the task is marked 100% complete?
I know I can change the Display option to uncheck "Include Completed Tasks", but then it looks like the task owner has done no work by mid to end of month, making them look like they were under allocated for the whole month.
Sorry for the delayed answer, Kathy.
Changing completed tasks to differ in the past allocation reporting from the PM's current schedule are not planned. So yes, you have to change the schedule to match the past if you want historical allocation data to match the dates within which the work was completed.
Please sign in to leave a comment.