How Can There Be This Many Percent Complete Options!

A friend who is moderately new to Primavera P6 recently wanted to add percent complete to her activity layout.  She was somewhat overwhelmed with the number of choices available.    Here is a simplified look at what percent complete can mean in the Primavera world.   

Activity Percent Complete - There are three options for activity percent complete.   Each of these percent completes is calculated and available for each activity, the selection in the General tab indicates which one is tied to activity percent complete.

»    Duration % Complete will calculate the activity percent complete as (Original Duration-Remaining Duration)/Original Duration*100.  This can work for level of effort type work.

»    Physical % Complete requires the user to update the percent complete manually.  This allows you to reflect the technical percent complete of a task regardless of the duration.  This percent complete should be based on an objective measure of the task's progress.  Steps can be used to track individual components of an activity to help you calculate this.

»    Units % Complete will calculate the activity percent complete by taking the actual units ((labor and non-labor)/(actual units (labor and non-labor) + the remaining units (labor and non-labor))*100.    This will work for activities where the expenditure of resources against the forecast accurately reflects the progress of the task. 

There are also other percent completes you can show in layouts and reports.  Some of the more commonly used of these are:

»    Performance % Complete is used to calculate earned value.  This is calculated based on settings in the Earned Value tab of the WBS.  It can be based on the activity percent complete, 0/100 or 50/50, milestones or  a custom percent complete.

»    Schedule % Complete shows how much of the activity should be completed based on the baseline's duration.  

»    Cost % Complete is calculated as (Actual Total Cost/At Complete Total Cost)*100.

»    Cost % of Planned is calculated as the (Actual Total Cost/BL Total Cost)*100

»    Steps % Complete shows the WBS percent complete based on the WBS Milestones that are assigned. 

So, make sure when you are reporting percent complete in Primavera, you understand which value you are reporting and what it represents, and it can save you unnecessary problems.