Capture % Complete on a specific date

[KellieGardner]

I'm looking for a way to capture the percent complete of a task on a specific date. Trying to think through how to do a calculate field to capture this data. Wondering if anyone has ideas or has accomplished this?

#textmode #reporting

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore · Accepted solution]

Hi Kellie,

One out of the box approach would be to periodically a baseline of the Project(s) that contain such tasks, which would capture both the overall Project % Complete, and each underlying Task % Complete "on that date". With those in hand, were you to also mark the Baseline as default (or filter for the Baseline that matches "that date"), you can then pull the Task % Complete of interest. Taking Baselines is easy, but manual, so depending on how many and how often, I invite you to consider our Create Baselines solution, which can be scheduled (e.g. weekly) against a filter of those projects of interest (e.g. those with a status of "CUR").

Alternatively (albeit recklessly)...if all you really need is the % Complete on certain Tasks at a certain point in time, if you were to add a Custom Calculated parameter (e.g. "Latest Percent Complete") to (only) such Tasks, on the day you need Fresh Stats, you could:

• BLANK the formula out and "Update Existing Data" to clear the old values,
• (Recommended) examine a few samples to confirm the clear worked
• UPDATE the formula (back) to =IF(ISBLANK({Latest Percent Complete}),{percentComplete},{Latest Percent Complete}) to "lock" the value on that date
• (Recommended) examine a few samples to confirm the calculation worked
• Report off the Latest Percent Complete as needed
• Rinse and repeat as desired

If you decided to proceed with either, I'm interested to hear how it turned out (and curious as to why you chose the one you did).

Regards,

Doug

cc: note to self @Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore 

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[KellieGardner]

Thanks for that Doug, I appreciate the reply.

I thought about baselines but wasn't sure if it could work for my use case. Let me explain a little further. 

We need a report that will capture the the percent complete of specific tasks in a project on a certain day. example: 

• Project A
  • Task X
    • % Complete on 9/30/22
    • Planned Completion Date
  • Task Y
    • % Complete on 9/30/22
    • Planned Completion date

Is it possible to reference the baseline of a task in a task report? Baselines are further than my text mode reporting has taken me. 

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Kellie,

Yes indeed: Workfront's reporting will let you get at the Default Baseline and Baseline Task details from either a Task Report, or (similar to this post) a Project Report, which I believe would be very similar to the requirement you're describing, provided you "create default the baseline" that you wish to reference using one of the techniques I mentioned in my previous post.

Regards,

Doug

[KellieGardner]

Thanks Doug.

We decided to go with the calculated field on the specific tasks we need to capture. We chose this option as it appears the baseline has to be the default in order to pull it into reporting and we don't want to to change the projects default baseline just for this one report.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Thanks Kellie!

I'm pleased that [correction] calculated parameter approach was of use to you, and appreciate you marking it as best answer. in doing so, you just wished for three more wishes. 

Regards,

Doug