% Complete

Hello,

I have a project implementation worksheet set up with parent rows and sub-tasks below them. When I enter a % complete for the sub-tasks, it doesn't reflect in the parent row unless all the sub-tasks reflect 100% complete. Is there something I have to turn off/on in order for the parent row to show a true % complete? (i.e. 45% or 76% complete)

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Comments

Stephen Uekert

Sorry for the dumb question but are the subtasks true subtasks of a parent? Meaning are they indented below the parent row?

The reason I ask is because the first couple of times that I set up a project I forgot to indent the "children" rows and so they weren't true subtasks.

Stephen Uekert

And I could be wrong but I also think you have to have start/end dates on the sub tasks as well.

Christopher Ferrara

Hi Steve, definitely not a dumb question as I am new to this program. The subtasks are true to the parent row.

However, I do not have the start/end dates filled in. Do you think this is what is preventing it from calculating?

Stephen Uekert

Hey I'm pretty new too :-)

I know I did some testing and I didnt' see the percentages show up and affect the parent until they were both indented and had a start/end date.

Hopefully that will do the trick for you but if not maybe someone with some more experience will weight in soon.

Christopher Ferrara

I just tried entering in start dates and again it is not necessarily accomplishing what I was expecting. Basically, I have a project that I want to see the parent row's total % complete, which are associated with a number to be completed, reflect whatever % is remaining that was not completed or partially completed.

Not sure if this makes sense without seeing it but for example:

Cell A5, A6, A7 each have the number 10 in them, 10 representing a number i need to complete for that subtask. A4 is the parent cell and A5-A7 are subtasks. If i entered in "100, 90, 80" into the % complete column adjacent to those cells, respectively, I should see the total % completed reflect 90% (27/30). I am not seeing this.

Travis

Christopher, parent rows will show a weighted average of child row percent complete based on entered percent complete and task duration, which is why will need dates in child rows for the parent to roll up this value.

The automatic rollup will show a weighted average so if you would rather calculate the average percent complete of child rows, use this formula in the parent row percent complete column:

=AVG(CHILDREN())

Keep in mind, columns associated with dependencies (such as your percent complete column) cannot contain formulas. If you want to add a formula, you will need to disassociate this column by right clicking on a column header and selecting Edit Project Settings > Dependency Settings > Options > % Complete column > change to --None--

Hope this helps!

Christopher Ferrara

Thank you very much for your answer Travis. Although I don't fully understand your response yet, it did lead me to a solution.

I have to take some more time to digest what you are saying about the idea behind needing dates in order for the parent rows to roll up the value.

I was able to get what I wanted by inputting a mathematical formula into the parent cells in my "% completed" column. Basically, i need to know a total % completed based on TOTAL NUMBERS completed within each row, not TOTAL ROWS % completed. I noticed the formula you gave me (without putting in any dates still) only gave me a % comleted of the total number of sub-tasks, counting each row as a whole and not considering the information inside of it. I basically created a formula which takes the % complete that is manually entered and multiplies it by the number it is associated with in the respective column. I did this each parent row within a larger parent row, added them all together and divided it by the total number associated in this one's respective column. Therefore, giving me a true percentage of the total number of items completed.

I hope that makes sense, not that you need to know b/c it is not your project, but in case you were wondering what I ended up doing. If your willing, I would appreciate feedback.

Thanks,

Chris

Travis

Hi Chris, if I understand what you are looking for, you want to show the % complete based on the average completeness of all child tasks, correct? For example, 100, 90, and 80 would be 90 or 90% complete?

The =AVG(CHILDREN()) would do this - here is an example:

The two bold numbers are both results of a the =AVG(CHILDREN()) formula.

Screen Shot 2015-08-12 at 9.21.50 AM.png

Christopher Ferrara

Yes. That is exactly what I was looking to do. When I first tried that formula, it was giving me a % in the parent row that was equal to the average of fully completed rows, not average of the percentages completed. I will try it again.

Thank you for your feedback

Josh Smith

One other thing that could be the culprit here is that whatever column you are using to capture % complete isn't actually called out in the project settings that way.

Right click on a column, select "Project Settings", and under "Options" make sure that your "% Complete" column references the column where you'd like the parent row to calculate overall % complete based on the rows beneath it.

I have found on some of my sheets that this option is often set to none, which breaks the % complete roll-up functionality.

Hope this helps.

Josh

cypha interactive

How do I use formulas to achieve attached results similar to what i would se in excel but in Smartsheet? I am trying to find out how many of my bugs are fixed and how many still to fix i.e. 15 / 45 (15 = fixes, 45 = total number of bugs).

please help

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 1.28.00 pm.png

Bill Cohn

If you want the % Complete and Start/End Dates to auto populate and calc on the parent rows, you must go enable Dependencies in Project Settings/Dependency Settings. Begin by right clicking any column heading to open Dependency Settings. Click the checkbox to enable dependencies. If you don't want to view or use the auto created dependency columns, I recommend moving them to the far right end of the sheet and/or hiding them.

The Dependencies enabled setting can be selected at any time to enable the parent rollup.