Hi all,



I am using MS Project 2013 and I'm having a problem with the reporting of 'late tasks'.

I have a production schedule for works on a customers site. Our engineers work to my schedule and report back progress on a daily basis.

The schedule has a baseline set and I update this schedule daily and produce a report which should highlight late tasks in a table.

However, I have noticed that these late tasks aren't being correctly identified.

If I insert the 'Status' field I can see that many of the tasks which are in the past (behind the current date and baseline date) are not identified as late.

As an example, the current date (today 31/07/2015) I have several tasks as far back as Baseline Finish dates of 27/07/2015 which are identified as 'On Schedule' or 'Future Tasks'. Clearly this is not correct.

The Finish Variance field shows that there is a variation from the plan (see attached screen shot)

Can anyone explain why this would be the case?

Thanks

Attached Images

MS project Late Tasks Query.jpg (170.3 KB, 24 views)

The calculation of Status is based upon the Status Date (Project Ribbon). If your status date is incorrect, the data will be incorrect.

Hi Julie,

Thats the weird thing. The Status date was set correctly?

I'm assuming my report showing 'Late Tasks' is wrong because it gathers information from the Status field?

Hi

So I went back into my original file and re-set a baseline. I again updated the tasks to show the actual start and finish times my Site Manager gave me, while checking on future tasks which were 'Late'.

As I began to update the tasks as completed I noticed that tasks further down the schedule which were 'Late' began to show as 'On Schedule' or 'Future'. These shouldn't be because my project is running behind schedule and several of these now 'On Schedule' or 'Future' tasks should have been completed 3 days before the current Status Date.

Is this change happening because Project is automatically rescheduling tasks due to the project drifting from the original baseline schedule which I had set?

I would like to show tasks which are 'Late' against the baseline.

Thanks

Tasks are marked as late if their current progress is behind the status date. If you have been rescheduling tasks (as you should - there should be no incomplete work in the past) - the rescheduling "resets" the task status. Late tasks are not "as compared to baseline" - the Slipping Tasks filter or a custom RAG comparing [Finish] to [Baseline Finish] I think would suit your needs better.