Some of you may have noticed that there are two columns in the Deltek Cobra system that both display percent complete values. They have two slightly different names; i.e. “Percent Complete” and “% Complete” and indeed are doing different things, however what they are both doing isn’t immediately obvious.
Truth is I hadn’t noticed that both of these existed until a customer asked me what the difference between the two columns was; and why sometimes they display slightly different values. I’ve only ever used the “% Complete” column.
Nevertheless, I added the field to the CAWP table area and looked at the issue in question. Sure enough the values on some of the work packages were indeed showing minor variations in the customer’s project data.
Here’s what we discovered as we worked with the two different columns.
The Percent Complete Column
This column displays the Percent Complete value that is known to Deltek Cobra via the ‘% Complete’ field in the General tab.
The % Complete Column
This column displays a percent complete value calculated based upon earned value divided by BAC. This is evident by the fact that it will remain at zero for a newly opened work package until earned value is calculated.
As for the fact that these two values can sometimes vary by small amounts, typically less than a small fraction of each other, we concluded that this could be attributed to rounding errors, being that one value is entered (either via integration of manual entry) and the other value is the result of a calculation.
We also observed in the customer’s data that only work packages with burdened labor resources seemed to suffer from minor variances between the two percent complete fields. Material and ODC work packages seemed consistently equal. While there’s currently no technical data to support this conclusion, I can only quote Dr. Ryan in the movie Hunt for Red October and say that “it seemed logical”.
UPDATE
We’ve had feedback from customers about this blog and have written an expanded article clarifying the use of the two Percent Complete columns further. You can read by clicking here.
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