Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

Menu

703-910-2600
Search this website

PRIMAVERA P6 PERCENT COMPLETE TYPES

EXPLAINED

You are here: Home / Primavera P6 / Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

July 23, 2013 By TheP6Pro

When adding activities to a Primavera P6 EPPM or Professional schedule, you have three possible
percent complete types to choose from: Duration, Physical and Units. Which one you choose depends
on your desired outcome. This article explains each of the Primavera P6 activity percent compete
choices, when you should use a particular percent complete type and how they affect your process for
entering status to your project’s schedule.

THE ACTIVITY % COMPLETE FIELD

Before we get into the specifics of the percent complete types, we need to take a quick look at the
Activity % Complete field. This field’s existence can be a little confusing because it sounds like another
percent complete type. However it is, in fact, a field (column) into which a value can be placed to
update the value in the activity’s selected percent complete type field. In other words you don’t need to
add a column for all three percent complete types that you might be using within a schedule, rather you
just add the Activity % Complete field, and enter your values there.

https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]

Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

Any option that reduces the number of columns you need to have displayed in your P6 table area is a
good thing.

DURATION % COMPLETE
This option is used to calculate progress from the planned and remaining duration values. For
example, if you enter 6 days of remaining duration for a 10 day duration activity, Primavera P6 will
calculate 40% complete. Transversely, if you enter 40% in the Activity % Complete field, P6 will
calculate a remaining duration of 6 days.

Original or Planned Duration – Remaining Duration = Percent Complete

https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]

Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

Usage:
Enter a percent complete value in the Activity % Complete column or directly into the Duration %
Complete column. Primavera P6 will automatically calculate the Remaining Duration for the activity. Or
enter a Remaining Duration value and let P6 calculate the percentage.

This percent complete type is best used for more level of effort type activities where measurable
deliverables are not expected and the percent complete represents elapsed time more than
deliverables completed.

PHYSICAL % COMPLETE
The percent complete values will be entered by the user manually. Entering a value in the Activity %
Complete field will update the Physical % Complete value. The Physical % Complete type is required if
you wish to use Steps to drive progress.

Caution: When Physical % Complete is used, you must adjust the Remaining Duration as this is not
calculated by Primavera P6. You must enter a Remaining Duration manually, or set an Expected
Finish date on the activity.

https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]

Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

If you don’t adjust the Remaining Duration, P6 will add the Actual Duration to the Remaining Duration.
This will cause unnecessary variance in the project and will likely alter your critical path. As you can
see in the following figure, the Remaining Duration remained at 10 days, the Actual Duration was
added to it, giving an At Completion Duration of 14 days, and pushing all successor activities out but
that amount.

You can use the Expected Finish date option to help control the remaining duration of Physical %
Complete activities. Adding a date in the Expected Finish date field locks down the end date of the
activity and forces P6 to calculate the Remaining Duration.

https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]

Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

In the above image you can see that an Expected Finish date of 27-Jan-15 has pulled the end date
back to its original date and caused P6 to calculate a 6 day remaining duration.

Physical % Complete and Steps

An additional advantage when using the Physical % Complete technique is the ability to progress the
activity using weighted steps. Weighted Steps are simply a checklist of things that must be completed
before the activity can be considered finished.

Continuing with our Mobilize activity example, weighted steps have been added from a Step Template.

The weights values entered will be calculated to a percentage value by Primavera P6 and will drive the

https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]

Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

Physical % Complete value of the activity. The weight values can be any decimal number and thus
spare the user from manually calculating the Percent Complete values; they just enter some arbitrary
value based on whatever factor they choose; number of hours, relative degree of difficulty, whatever.

As Steps are checked off as Completed, so they will drive the Percent Complete for the activity. The
user will still need to manually update the remaining duration or expected finish date values as
previously described.

Note: the “Calculate Activity % Complete from the activity steps” must be set in the “Calculations” tab
of the “Set Project Preferences” dialog must be set in order for this feature to work.

Usage:
The Physical % Complete progress type should be used when dealing with discrete work that equates
to one or more measurable delivery items.

UNITS % COMPLETE
The Units % Complete type is used when resources are assigned to an activity and actual units
worked will be tracked. Actual Units may be entered manually or via the Apply Actuals feature that
loads actual units from a timesheet module such as Primavera Progress Reporter.

https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]

Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

As with Physical % Complete, Units % Complete doesn’t calculate the remaining duration for activities,
so you will need to use either the Remaining Duration field or an Expected Finish date to manually
control the calculated end date for your activity.

Usage:
Use Units % Complete when resources are assigned to the activity and actual units will be tracked.
The only drawback of this method is that hours expended doesn’t necessarily equate to progress
achieved, so this method is not very discrete.

Summary
I hope this article helps give you a better understanding of each of the Primavera P6 activity percent
complete choices, when they should be applied and what the outcome will be when statusing your
project.

For more Primavera P6 articles click here

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Email

Submit

https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]

Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

F Li T

CATEGORIES
Deltek Acumen

Deltek Cobra

Earned Value Mgmt

Microsoft Project

PMO

Primavera P6

Project Management

Risk Management

ARCHIVES
Select
SelectMonth
Month

UPCOMING CLASSES
Primavera Primavera Primavera
P6 P6 EPPM P6 EPPM
Profession Fundamen Administrat
al tals or
Fundamen
Oracle EVMS
tals
Primavera Training
P6 BI
https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]
Primavera P6 Percent Complete Types Explained

Deltek
Publisher
Cobra
Fundamen
Fundamen
tals
tals
Training
Training
Class
Deltek
Cobra
Advanced
Training
Class
Deltek
Acumen
Fuse
Training
Class

Copyright © 2020 · Ten Six Consulting, LLC · 703.910.2600

https://tensix.com/2013/07/primavera-p6-percent-complete-types/[25/02/2020 10:57:05 AM]