Project and Project Task - % Complete

The % Complete for both Project and Project Task is used to indicate progress, or how much of the task or project is done. 

Project Task - How % Complete is Adjusted

% Complete for Project Tasks is automatically updated when the status is adjusted. 


Please Note:

• The status values defined in the table below are the standard status picklist values that come as a default with Inspire Planner.
   
• If you have custom status values defined in Custom Settings, then % Complete will adjust according to your custom status values. For example, if you have a custom status called "In Development" and have defined it as the equivalent of "In Progress" in custom settings, then when you adjust the task status to "In Development", % Complete will adjust according to how it would have adjusted for "In Progress". 
   
• If the Project Task is assigned to multiple resources, then the Project Task % Complete is an aggregate of the related Salesforce Tasks % Complete.
   
• Checklist Items, Time Entries (Actual Effort), Planned Effort, Budgeted Cost, and Actual Cost do not update % Complete.

Although % Complete defaults to the values defined in the table above when the task status is updated, % Complete can be and should be adjusted according to the progress made. This means that although % Complete defaults to 10% when you move a task from "Not Started" to "In Progress", it is recommended that you adjust the value for % Complete according to the progress you've made. If progress is now at 40%, then manually update % Complete to 40%.

If the task status is "Completed" or "Deferred" (or any equivalent custom status) and you adjust % Complete from 100% to a lesser value greater than 0, it will then update the task status to "In Progress". If you update % Complete to 0%, then it will update the task status to "Not Started".

When the related Salesforce Task % Complete is adjusted, this then adjusts the Project Task % Complete to the same value. However, if the Project Task is assigned to multiple resources, then the Project Task % Complete is an aggregate of the related Salesforce Tasks and is calculated as follows:

Sum of related Saleforce Task % Complete / Number of related Salesforce Tasks

This means that if:

Resource 1 - Salesforce Task % Complete is 60%

Resource 2 - Salesforce Task % Complete is 20%

Then Project Task % Complete would be:

(60% + 20%) / 2 

Parent Tasks - How % Complete is Adjusted

The Parent Task % Complete is an aggregate of the child tasks and will automatically update when either % Complete or Duration is adjusted for any of the child tasks. Since % Complete is an aggregate on the parent task, you cannot edit this value. You can only edit % Complete for the child tasks.

The Parent Task % Complete is calculated as follows:

(Task Duration / Total Duration for Group of Tasks) * % Complete

If we look at the example below, the parent task % Complete is at 16%. This value is calculated from:

(Task 1 Duration of 4 days / Total Task Group Duration of 10 days) * Task 1 % Complete of 40%

As you continue to update either % Complete or Duration for any of the child tasks, the parent task % Complete will automatically recalculate. 

If we look at the example below, the parent task % Complete is at 46%. This value is the sum of:

(Task 1 Duration of 4 days / Total Task Group Duration of 10 days) * Task 1 % Complete of 100%

(Task 2 Duration of 2 days / Total Task Group Duration of 10 days) * Task 2 % Complete of 30%

Please Note:

• Milestones account for 1% of the % Complete of a Parent Task. This means that if you have 5 child tasks and 1 is a milestone, when you mark 4 out of the 5 complete, but the milestone task is still open, the % Complete at the Parent Task will display at 99%. Even if you have multiple milestones under the same Parent Task, they all only account for 1%.
   
• If a Milestone was marked complete and then updated back to "In Progress" (or equivalent custom status), it will update the Parent Task Status to "in Progress" (or equivalent custom status) and % Complete to 99%. However, if the Project is already at 100% Complete, it will remain as is since Milestone Tasks are not considered in the % Complete of the Project.

Project - How % Complete is Adjusted

The Project % Complete is a formula field and is calculated the same way that parent task % Complete is calculated. This means that you cannot manually edit the value for Project % Complete. 

Unlike project tasks, adjusting the project status will not update project % Complete. 

Please Note:

• There are two (2) workflow rules that are active by default in Inspire Planner that will automatically update the project status whenever the value in project % Complete updates.

• Project - Enforce 100 When Completed - this automatically updates the project status to "Completed" when project % Complete is at 100%.
   
• Set Project to In Progress - this automatically updates the project status to "In Progress" when project % Complete is > 0 and < 100%.

• The aforementioned workflows only update the project task status to "In Progress" (when project % Complete is > 0 and < 100) or to "Completed" (when project % Complete is = 100). This means that if the project % Complete is reset back to 0, the project status does not update back to "Not Started". You will need to manually update the status to reflect the project's current state.
   
• This means that even if you manually update the project status to "Completed" but project % Complete is less than 100%, the next time a change is made to the project tasks where project % Complete is recalculated, if it is less than 100%, project status will update back to "In Progress".
   
• Milestones are not included when % Complete is calculated for the Project since it only includes tasks with a duration. This means that even if you have Milestones in the project that are not complete, but all other project tasks are complete, the project will display as 100% complete.

** With Inspire Planner's OCT 2025 Major Release, scheduled to be deployed to production environments on November 4, 2025, these workflows will be deactivated and replaced with triggers. 

If you prefer to manually control Project Status updates, you can adjust this behavior in Custom Settings (Inspire Planner Config):

• To prevent the Project Status from automatically changing to Completed when Project % Complete = 100%, set Disable: Enforce Completed When 100 to TRUE.

• To prevent the Project Status from automatically changing to In Progress when Project % Complete is greater than 0 but less than 100, set Disable: Set Project to In Progress to TRUE.