We have a report based on a task % being >0% to determine if that task has been started. In reality, they could be researching and have only moved the task to "In Progress". We might reassign thinking they haven't begun.
I agree to this idea, that the status "In Progress" should be linked with completeness %, but also logged hours should be included. In my opinion it should not be possible to log hours and leave task status in "New" and/or 0%. This should all be linked together. As soon as hours are logged on a task, status must be set to "In Progress" and user must enter % of completeness. If any of these three is not in synch, system should prompt an error to the user, asking to enter appropriately.