New P6 schedulers should familiarize themselves with activity % complete. In Primavera P6 there are a number of percent complete types to choose from. Therefore, you may use more than one percent complete type in any given schedule. If that’s the case, then you will want to get to know activity percent complete. Primavera P6 Professional has three different ways of measuring progress: duration, physical, and units.
Duration % Complete
Duration % Complete type is used when the remaining duration value is calculated directly from the Activity % Complete field.
Physical % Complete
Physical % Complete type is used when the physical work achieved does not correlate directly to the remaining duration; the production rate is not constant.
Units % Complete
Units % Complete models the situation where you have multiple resources working at different burn rates.
The percent complete type is assigned at the activity level. It is possible that any one of these three percent complete types are assigned to different activities in the schedule. You may for example use duration % complete type for all activities in a schedule except those with Steps, as Steps require the Physical % Complete type.
Regardless, the Activity % Complete field is tied to the percent complete type assigned to the respective activity: that is, it’s a generic field that will display a value regardless of the percent complete type being used.
This article demonstrates the direct correlation between Activity % Complete and the assigned activity percent complete type.
We have in Figure 1 our demonstration project.
Figure 1
This is a schedule with three activities A, B, and C assigned percent complete types duration, physical, and units, respectively. Project start is the predecessor of all three activities, and project closeout is the successor to all three.
We begin by progressing activity A, Figure 2.
Figure 2
This activity has duration % complete 60%, which is tied directly to the 2-day remaining duration. Note both resource assignments, displayed in Figure 3, have 24-hour actual units, 16-hr remaining units, and 40-hour actual units.
Figure 3
Note the percent complete values: 60% duration, 0% physical, and 60% units. The Activity % Complete column correctly says the activity’s % complete is 60%.
Next we progress activity B, Figure 4.
Figure 4
The activity Physical % Complete is set to 80%. Note that the remaining duration is not linked to the Physical % Complete value. We have to manually set the remaining duration, which we set to 2-day remaining in Figure 5.
Figure 5
Note in Figure 6 that the actual units for both resources is manually set from 24-hour to 32-hour, and the remaining units/time automatically adjusts to 4-hour/day to spread the remaining work over the 2-day remaining duration.
Figure 6
Note the percent complete values: 60% duration, 80% physical, and 80% units. The Activity % Complete value of 80% links directly from the Physical % Complete column.
Finally, we progress activity C, Figure 7.
Figure 7
The activity Units % Complete is set to 80%, which we will adjust due to differing resource burn rates. We also manually enter a remaining duration of 1-day, Figure 8.
Figure 8
In Figure 9 we set the actual units of the resources to 32-hour and 30-hours, respectively.
Figure 9
The resources have different burn rates. Note that the remaining durations automatically compute to 8-hour/day and 10-hour/day to result in at completion units of 40-hours for each resource. The percent complete values compute to: 80% duration, 0% physical, and 77.5% units. The Activity % Complete value reflects the more accurate Units % Complete value due to the differing burn rates of the resources.
In Figure 10 we move the data date forward one week and recalculate the schedule.
Figure 10
The Activity % Complete values stay fixed. Note in Figure 11 that activity C Units % Complete value of 77.5% computes from the 62-hours actual labor units divided by the 80-hour at complete labor units.
Figure 11
The Duration % Complete value of 80% reflects actual units of both resources at 32-hours divided by at completion units of 40-hours. So in this situation with differing resource burn rates the Units % Complete is more accurate.
Summary
Each Primavera P6 percent complete type is most accurate depending on the particular schedule situation. Though duration %, physical %, and units’ % complete values may be assigned to each activity, the Activity % Complete values reflect the percent complete type assigned to the activity. In this way, progress based on the most accurate percent complete type can be summarized in the Activity % Complete column.
