Reader Nicolas Josse has been using Microsoft Project for eight years as a project manager. Recently, he put out the following questions to other MPUG members for some help. This article encapsulates the discussion from beginning to end.

The Original Inquiry

First, there's a standard column in Project called "% complete" in which we enter the task progress. But, as far as I know, there is no standard column that automatically calculates the "theoretical completion percentage," (taking into account the start and finish dates of the task). This could be very helpful to calculate the variance, (how much is the task behind schedule?) which is the difference between the "theoretical completion %" and the "% complete". This variance helps use emoticons (green, yellow, red, for example), according to size of the delay.

So far, I've created a customized field in which I use the following formula:

% theoretical completion of the task = ProjDateDiff([Start date];Date();[Project Calendar]))*100)/([Duration]

Is there a simpler way to get this information (standard column,...)?

Second, Project has another standard column called "status" that displays the task status according to the start date, finish date and % complete (which is manually entered). The task status can be "without delay," "delay," "completed," and "next (future) task." That means Project knows whether the task is delayed or not as a qualitative information. Is there a way to add a column with quantitative information such as the percentage value?

Third and last, I want to create a customized field displaying the week number of a given date. I can only find functions to express Year(date) and Month(date). Does this other function exist? Has anybody else created one?

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