Hello
I am trying to update an activity and have a basic question

The activitys scheduled start date (based on what ms office automatically scheduled) was nov 15, 2011. And I had given it a duration of 21 days at that time so it was supposed to finish dec 13 2011. But now, as of january 26 2012 it is still not complete and we anticipate there is still 1-2 weeks to go. when i update the task as of now, which column should i update?

when i write into actual duration column, and make it 60 days, so that it finished 1-2 weeks from now, it automatically makes the %complete to 100 but it is not 100% complete. It is about 80%

but if i only update the % complete to 80 then it doesnt do anything to the finish date and still shows it as dec 13 which is a past date and the task is not finished. it doesnt do anything to 21 days duration and makes actual duration 12.6 days but this is wrong because the activity goes on since november thus have much more duration.



so again, which column or columns should i update?

so which column or columns should i update?

When you enter an actual duration greater than the original duration, Project assumes you are complete. Enter the actual duration of 53 days (plus or minus as needed) and then add a remaining duration of 14 days to extend the scheduled finish to where needed.

Leave the % complete alone. Project will calculate the % complete based upon the actual and remaining duration.

I hope this helps.
Julie

okay so as you adviced, i first gave 54 days to actual duration, i inserted the remaining duration column and to that one did 14 days and as you said it automatically calculated the percent complete. so lets say a week from now when we are closer but not still complete, this time would i only update remaining duration? it doesnt seem like that because when i decreased 14 remaining days to 7, this time it also reduced the actual duration amount but may be it is because of today is the current date? and a week from now it would work? so in other words, i would update the actual duration only now and a week from now when i update the reamining duration it would work, or everytime, we update, we need to count the number of days passed and update the actual duration column as well?

also another question, when i inserted the remaining duration column and made it 14 days why is the % complete calculated to 79% and the work complete % is calculated to 0%?

No, you will update actual duration which will recalculate remaining duration based upon the original 53+14. If you need more time then the recalculated remaining duration, then change that value.

I imagine you don't have any resources assigned to the task. Project will only calculate % Work complete if you have assigned resources.