PPO calculates the overall planned and actual progress percentages of your project and tasks. These calculations provide an accurate, calculated view of the project's advancement without relying on the project managers to import their schedules regularly.
The below fields are calculated and can be seen on the Project entity:
How are these fields calculated?
Although PPO does the above calculations, the calculation steps are explained here to help the user understand which fields and values are used to determine the planned and actual progress percentages.
It's also important to note that the Planned Duration (Days) field is a hidden calculated field in PPO. It is only shown here for demonstration purposes.
TASK PLANNED PROGRESS %
Tasks
For tasks where the type is Task, the Planned Progress % will always calculate to zero when the Planned Start Date is still in the future and will conversely calculate to 100% if the Planned End Date has passed.
For tasks that have already passed their Planned Start Date but have not yet reached their Planned End Date, PPO will first determine the total duration of the task as a first step.
The second step is to determine the days that have passed since the Task's Planned Start Date. If we take today's date as 02 April 2025, the days past since the start of the below task's start date is 1 day.
Considering that the task total duration is 3 days, the calculation for the Planned Progress % is:
(1 days / 3 days) x 100 percent = 33 percent
Milestones
The Planned Progress % Calculation for Milestone is simply a check if today's date has reached or passed the Planned Start Date of the task. If this is the case, the Planned Progress % will show 100%; else, it will display 0%.
Summary Tasks
The Planned Progress % on Summary Tasks are based on all the Tasks where the Task Parent is the Summary Task I question and where the Task Type is Task.
The first step is to determine the total duration for all the Tasks linked to the Summary Task. This is calculated in the Planned Duration field, which is normally hidden from view but is shown in the example for demonstrative purposes.
We can see that the sum for the two linked tasks is 33 days + 5 days = 38 days.
The second step is to calculate the days that have passed since the task's planned start date. Taking today's date as 02 April 2025, we can determine that 18 days have passed since 6 March 2025 on the Implement Solution task.
The Planned Start Date on the Handover New System task is in the future, so we don't have to add any additional days to the days that should have been completed at this point.
The final calculation for the Planned Progress % is Total Days Passed / Total Duration x 100%, which is;
18 days / 38 days x 100% = 47%
Project Tasks
The Planned Progress % calculation on the Project Task is the same calculation used on the Project itself. Refer to the Project Planned Progress Percentage section further down in this article for a detailed explanation of the calculation.
PROJECT ACTUAL PROGRESS %
The Actual Progress % field is calculated as follows:
Step 1 - Determine the duration of the ENTIRE PROJECT
This is done by adding up the Planned Duration field of all the tasks on the Tasks entity. This is only done for the tasks where the task type is "Task" (not summary tasks, milestones, or the project task).
In the example above, the total planned duration of the project is: 50.75 days.
Step 2 - Determine the duration of the TASKS ALREADY COMPLETED
Next, the Planned Duration of all the completed Tasks is added together.
In the example above, the Planned Duration of all the completed Tasks is 7.5 days.
However, there is also a Task that is partially completed (62 percent actual progress, marked in blue above). To determine the duration of the portion of the Task that is completed, the Actual Progress % is multiplied by the Planned Duration (62 percent x 1 day). The result is 0.62 days. Thus, we add the 0.62 days which have already been completed for this task to the duration of the completed Tasks.
The total number of days that have already been completed for this project is thus: 8.12 days.
Step 3 - Calculate the ACTUAL PROGRESS %
Lastly, to determine the percentage of work that has already been completed (Actual Progress %) the number of completed days is divided by the total number of days and shown as a percentage.
Therefore, (8.12 days / 50.75 days) x 100 percent = 16 percent
This is then reflected in the calculated field for the actual progress percentage on the Projects entity.
PROJECT PLANNED PROGRESS PERCENTAGE
The Planned Progress % field is calculated as follows:
Step 1 - Determine the duration of the ENTIRE PROJECT
Determine the duration of the entire project as per Step 1 for the actual progress percentage. To recap this is done by adding up the Planned Duration field of all the tasks on the Tasks entity. This is only done for the tasks where the task type is "Task" (not summary tasks, milestones or the project task).
Step 2 - Determine the duration of TASKS UP TO TODAY
Next, calculate the duration of all Tasks that were planned to be completed by today.
For example, if today's date is 10 April 2022, the Planned Duration of all the Tasks set to start and end before 10 April 2022 will be added up.
In the example above, the Planned Duration of all the tasks planned to be completed by 2 April is 15.5 days.
Please note there could be tasks that could be partially completed by today. The task could have a Planned Duration of three days. By the end of today, a full day's work on the planned task should have been completed. When calculating the planned duration in days just keep this in mind.
Step 3 - Calculate the Planned Progress Percentage
Lastly, to determine the percentage of work that should have been completed by today (Planned Progress %) the number of completed days is divided by the total number of days and shown as a percentage.
Therefore, (15.5 days / 50.75 days) x 100 percent = 30.54 percent, which rounds up to 31 percent.
This is then reflected in the calculated field for Planned Progress % on the Projects entity.