1. Are projects on-time?

The main project list already delivers some key information. The "Deadline" icon indicators as well actual progress and start and dates, give a very good overview of project deadlines at a glance.

Project is on time.

Actual expected End date is after planned End date

Actual date is after Expect End date and / or planned End date

Note: Planned and Actual (expected) Start and End dates, as well initial ones can be displayed at the user’s discretion.

Opening a project description, a project manager can have much more information concerning project delays.

See the "Project description" record description above for more information.

2. Project deadline calculation

The project deadline, which appears in the project header is computed as described below.

1. General

The project deadline is only computed for active projects. No deadline is computed for stand-by, cancelled or postponed projects. Once a project is completed, the deadline is not computed anymore, so the state at the project’s completion is kept.

Two deadlines are calculated:

• One based on initial dates.

• The other based on planned dates.

A parameter in the setup allows indicating which one is displayed. In the project description, a tooltip shows which one is displayed when hovering the mouse over it. The parameter can be found in the first tab of the "General" setup document, "Projects" table. By default, the deadline based on the planned dates is displayed. The existing projects are not updated when migrating. But once they are updated, the modification of the parameter is applied at once. There is no need to synchronize the dates of the project once again.

The project deadline is updated when synchronizing the plan, or directly from within the project description, by clicking on the refresh icon in the "Plan" table.

2. Project not yet started

As long as an active project has no actual start date:

• if the initial / planned end date is in the past, the deadline is red,

• if the initial / planned start date is in the past, the deadline is orange, otherwise, it is green.

3. Project started

As soon as a project has an actual start date, the calculation is performed by comparing the initial / planned end date to the current end date (EAC date found in Genius Planner).

• if the EAC end date is in the past, the deadline is red,

• as long as the EAC end date is not in the past, and equals or is earlier than the initial / planned end date, the deadline is green,

• When the EAC end date is after the initial/planned end date, the initial/planned end date is in the past, the deadline is red, otherwise, it is orange.

If it is impossible to calculate the deadline, because the project is not active, or dates are missing, then a white dot is displayed.

4. Modifications in the project description

The start date of the project is no more displayed in the "Plan" table, but was moved to the "Description" table.

The "Plan" table now contains a planned start date, that can be locked or not. When the dates are locked, it is then also calculated from the data in Genius Planner.

This initial and EAC dates were added in the "Plan" table, but are not displayed by default. A link allows hiding them or displaying them again.

The dates of a new project are locked by default. The EAC dates can never be unlocked.

3. Delayed milestones (deliverables) and tasks

The progress of a project and its respective delays can be measured in terms of completed and delayed deliverables (milestones), as well completed and delayed tasks. The view on project overview provides good report of this.

Note:  See the "Project Overview" record description to understand the color codes.

4. Calculation of delay

There are two possible definitions of delay. In both workload in task is required.

1. 'Days behind scheduled progress'.

2. 'Remaining working days beyond remaining duration': Calculation of delay in days results a value X. The value indicates how many days X the task is allow to be behind.

The delay will be calculated in percentage of workload of the overall time from task (duration), not in full days. E.g. 3 days workload of 5 days duration will be a daily workload of 60%.

Definition from Application Manager Manual:

Indicates after how many days an assignment is considered delayed, and the calculation mode to apply. (Note: a task is delayed as soon as one of its assignment is delayed)

Possible values for the calculation mode are:

'days behind scheduled progress'

'remaining working days beyond remaining duration'.

Default value is '0 days behind scheduled progress'. Delayed documents appear in the various views with a bomb icon.

Calculation of delay (Notes Help):

As long as the status of the corresponding task is 'Stand-by', 'Requested', 'In progress' or 'To control' and the assignment has no actual end date, the calculation is done according to the setup. So an assignment is late if:

1. The assignment is not started and the planned start date is in the past,

2. The assignment is started and the planned end date is in the past,

3. The task is started, the planned end date is still in the future, but:

1. The setup for delayed tasks is x 'days behind scheduled progress' and less work has been done on the task than planned, or

2. The setup for delayed tasks is x 'remaining working days beyond remaining duration' and there is not enough remaining duration to complete the task.

Note: Assignments from tasks marked as 'Never delayed' are also 'Never delayed'.

1. 'Days behind scheduled progress'

Case 3 example a.

To compute this case, it is considered that the assignment is worked regularly through the whole assignment duration. So if on the nth day the progress percentage is less than it should be then the assignment is late (depending on the gap defined in the setup).

Let us consider an assignment with a duration of 5 days and a workload of 3 days. The default gap was kept, that is 0 days.

We are on day 4, and the actual workload is 2 days. So, the remaining workload is 1 day, for a remaining duration of 1 day. But the assignment is delayed anyway, here is why:

Actual progress percentage: 2/3 = 66.67%

Planned workload per day: 3/5 = 0.6 days of workload each day (week-ends included). Planned progress percentage on day 4: (0.6*4)/3 = 80 %

The actual progress is less that the planned percentage, so the assignment is delayed. In other words, on day 4, we should have done 80% of the workload, but did only 66.67%.

The formula does indeed return a date. Here it is:

actualDate = assignment.PlannedStartDate + (assignment.PlannedEndDate - assignment.PlannedStartDate)*assignment.Percent

So here the actual date should be 1 + ((5 - 1) * 66.67%) = 3. Or it is 4, so the assignment is 1 day behind planned schedule.

2. 'Remaining working days beyond remaining duration'

Case 3 example b.

To compute this case, the remaining working days are multiplied by a factor of 7/5 to consider week-ends.

Let us consider the same assignment as above with a duration of 5 days and a workload of 3 days. The gap is 0 days.

We are on day 4, and the actual workload is 2 days. So, the remaining workload is 1 day, for a remaining duration of 1 day. The assignment is delayed, here is why:

The formula does indeed return a date. Here it is:

actualDate = assignment.PlannedEndDate - (assignment.RemainingWork * factor)

So here the actual date should be 5 - (1 * 7/5) = 3 Or it is 4, so the assignment can not be completed within the remaining duration.

Note: In both cases, if the gap specified for delayed tasks was 1 day or more, then this assignment would not be considered as delayed.

If actualDate < (Today - taskLateGap): 3 < 3 would not be verified.