keeping certain items separate from overall % calculation

[ketanco]

in my project schedule, there are a lot of submittal items which i should show as many installation activities are tied to them.

however, I want to keep them outside of overall % complete calculation, even though I still want to keep them in my schedule, including their durations and links.

can I do that?

[JulieS]

You cannot. If you set them up with duration - then they count towards % complete. I'd set them up as milestones. You'll still need to mark them as 100% complete when they are done - but if your resources are not working on them - I would not include them as tasks with duration.

[Guloluseus]

Assuming your submittal tasks have an effect on your programme, there is a way to partialy get around this, as I had asimilar problem. As julie says, use milestones to mark each submittal, but use a start and finish milestone with a lag- if task Submittal X has a duration of 10 days, predecessors A and B, and successors C and D, then set up tasks as below

Submittal X- Start Pred A, B, Successors Submittal X- finish, with lag of 10 (duration of task)

Submittal X-Finish Pred Submittal X-start, succ C,D

both as milestones. this will allow you to preserve the shape and integrity of your programme without giving any % complete.
This will effectively give you a task of any length with 0 duration.

[ketanco]

Originally Posted by JulieS

You cannot. If you set them up with duration - then they count towards % complete. I'd set them up as milestones. You'll still need to mark them as 100% complete when they are done - but if your resources are not working on them - I would not include them as tasks with duration.

I just saw a schedule done by another scheduler, and it reminded me my question about this.

He gave a 0 hour work duration to items like submittals, and more than 0 hours of work for regular construction activities. Can this be a solution? I assume this can be a solution, if that %complete calculated based on work. But that %complete calculates based on duration so this is not a solution right? so the method presented by the user Guloluseus can be recommended in this case, as the only solution?

How about, using % physical complete? would that work? that calculates based on work and not duration? Actually i dont prefer this as i enter everything as duration when doing my schedules. I saw this at : Under Option>Advanced tab, there is "Default Task Earned Value Method". It can be set as either % complete or Physical % complete.

[JulieS]

Milestones are zero duration and zero work as I suggested earlier. % complete is a duration measurement and you will still need to update the status of the milestone. % work complete is the same.

You can use Physical % complete, but you need to manually enter summary task physical % complete.

[ketanco]

so in the other schedulers schedule, when although he assigned zero work to submittals, but gave them durations, then his submittals are still taken into account for % complete correct?

[JulieS]

The summary tasks are not mark complete until all tasks (including milestones) are marked complete.