When progressing your schedule in Primavera P6, the % Complete Bar is a great way to visualize completed work on the Gantt chart.
A good visual on the Gantt chart may help in better perceiving percentage of work achieved in the schedule. The % Complete Bar plots completed work on the Gantt chart as the scheduler enters activity progress. Activity progress plots from the activity start date to a finish that equals that start date plus activity % complete times the activity duration. In this way the % Complete Bar provides a graphic of schedule progress on the Gantt chart, as activity progress is input.
This article provides a quick tip for displaying activity progress on the Gantt chart.
To display the % Complete of activities on the Gantt chart make sure to toggle on display % Complete graphic bar definition, Figure 1.
Figure 1
Note the timescale is set to ‘% Complete Bar’. Its filter is normal, which captures most activities. The preview displays a black line, so activity % Complete appears on the Gantt chart as a black Gantt chart bar.
In Figure 2 we have our demonstration project.
Figure 2
In this demonstration we are in the process of progressing the Mobilization activity, which is defined by several steps, Figure 2. The first two steps are complete, summing to a total Activity % Compete of 54.84%, as displayed in the Activity % Complete column in the Activity table. So we have a tabulated Activity % Complete value.
We also have a black line on the Gantt chart covering that portion of the Mobilization activity that is done. Continuing in Figure 3, we mark the Mobilization activity as started and manually input its remaining duration of 4-days.
Figure 3
It is important to note that the percent complete type of the Mobilization activity is physical, and the physical % complete of the Mobilization activity is 54.84%. Physical percent complete type activities require the manual insertion of a remaining duration value, which for our Mobilization activity is set to 4-days, Figure 3.
At this point it is difficult to perceive what the Mobilization Gantt chart bar is achieving in its display. It is noted, however, that the black % Complete Bar is darkens approximately 54.84% of the Mobilization activity. This bar adjusts when we complete our schedule status, so for now we proceed with the current % Complete Bar display. In Figure 4 we enter progress for the Install Fence activity.
Figure 4
The percent complete type of the install fence activity is Duration %. This percent complete type computes the remaining duration based upon the Duration % field. In our demonstration Install Fence is 25% complete and equates to 6-days remaining for our 8-day duration activity.
Great! We have entered the status for our schedule. Now we move the data date forward two weeks and recalculate the schedule. This resulting schedule displays in Figure 5.
Figure 5
At this juncture the Activity % Complete bar marks days expended on the project, regardless of how much progress is actually achieved. The Install Fence activity shows 4-days actual work effort, which are marked by the % Complete Bar. The Mobilization activity also displays 6-days actual work expended.
We also observe that we now have an Actual Work bar on the Gantt chart, displayed in blue. This Actual Work bar replicates the same effort as the % Complete bar. So we could un-toggle the display % Complete bar at this time in the scheduling process, because it is simply duplicating the graphics of the Actual Work bar.
Summary
The % Complete bar in Primavera P6 is useful for specifying activity progress, as the scheduler enters the progress of activities on the project. After updating the schedule, as per the data date, the Actual Bar definition is sufficient to indicate effort expended on each activity.
So at this point, the % Complete bar display can be un-toggled. The value of the % Complete bar is a measure of progress as completed steps are checked off for activities that have steps and a physical percent complete type. It also displays the progress of activities that have the duration percent complete type.