What is Progress Update?
When managing various activities of a project, you have to monitor their status, including whether they are in progress or completed, their actual start, actual finish, and remaining duration. If an activity deviates from the plan, you can edit the actual start and end dates to establish progress and compare it to the baseline plan.
1. Create a new version of the schedule
Prior to making any changes or updates, best practice is to create a new version of your schedule. This will allow you to revert back and compare to previous versions, so you can track changes in your schedule over time.
Navigate to the Version screen and create a new version of the schedule. Make sure to give it an appropriate name and description. For further help on creating new version please visit the help article here
2. Change the Data Date
Once inside the new version, change the Data Date to reflect the latest data date of the project. The data date is the “as of” date of the schedule. Expected finish dates and remaining durations will be calculated based on the data date.
Navigate to the top center of the screen and open the project information dialogue box
3. See list of activities that need to be updated
Option 1: Progress Updates tool
This will provide a simple list, in logical order, of activities that need to be updated. You can use this in any view (canvas, table, or Gantt)
Navigate to ‘Progress Updates’ in the ‘More’ menu
Select dates to view activities within that range. A common choice here is “on or before Data Date” to view all activities that should be updated.
Click an activity to navigate to it and open the progress status dialog box. Proceed to Step 4 to update activity status.
Option 2: Apply a date filter
Navigate to the Filter button on top right and create new filter
Select ‘is on or before’ option and data date as the date in the first condition. Then add a second condition ‘Status’ with has none of ‘Completed’ toggled on.
For information on Filters visit the help article here:
4. Update the Activity Status
Update Activity Status in all three schedule views: Canvas, Table, and Gantt.
If you’re working within the Progress Updates tool, the Activity Status window will open automatically.
To open activity status without the Progress Updates tool: Right-click the activity you wish to update and select 'Activity Status' or select and activity and click the 'Progress status' icon in the bottom left toolbar
Update activity status with actual dates or remaining durations in the dialogue box which appears in the bottom left
Note: Percent complete will be automatically calculated based on the remaining duration. If you complete Expected Finish, Remaining Duration will calculate based on data date (and vice versa).
Table:
Navigate to the Updates section
Click on the drop down in the Status column of the activity you wish to update and update the progress from the dialogue box
5. Schedule the job
To finalize the schedule update, click the 'Schedule' button (top right) or press F9
You may receive a dialogue box asking you to move activities to the data date “now” or “later”. To learn more about move now vs move later, refer to this article.