Remaining work fields

The Remaining Work fields show the amount of time, such as person-hours or days, still required to complete a task or set of tasks.

There are several categories of Remaining Work fields.

Data Type    Duration

Remaining Work (task field)

Entry Type    Calculated or entered

How Calculated    When a task is first created and no work has been reported, the Remaining Work field equals the Work field for the task. Once actual work is reported for the task, Project calculates remaining work as follows:

Remaining Work = Work - Actual Work

Best Uses    Add the Remaining Work field to a task view when you want to edit, display, or filter for remaining work information. Edit the Remaining Work field for the task when you need to increase or reduce the amount of work that's needed to complete the task. Editing remaining work also changes the value in the % Complete field.

Example    The "Write proposal" task is scheduled for 40 hours of work. The assigned resources have just informed you that eight hours of additional work will be needed to complete this task. You add the Remaining Work field to the Task Sheet view and edit the field to add eight more hours of remaining work for this task.

Remarks    If you type a value in the Remaining Work field, Project divides the remaining work you enter among the assigned resources.

When you enter percent complete or total actual work, Project might reschedule remaining work around the status date. If you prefer, you can leave these tracking fields in the project as originally scheduled, even if completed work is shown in the future or remaining work is shown in the past. You can do this in the Project Options dialog box.

You can set the status date to a date other than today's date in the Project Information dialog box.

Remaining Work (resource field)

Entry Type    Calculated

How Calculated    Remaining work for a resource is the sum of all remaining work values for all of the resource's assignments.

Best Uses    Add the Remaining Work field to a resource sheet when you want to display or filter for remaining work information for a resource.

Example    You notice that Sean seems to be continuously overworked, while Chris seems to be underutilized in the project. You want to analyze whether the workloads are really uneven so that you can improve the balance of assignments. You add the Remaining Work field to the Resource Sheet view to compare remaining workloads between the two resources.

Remaining Work (assignment field)

Entry Type    Calculated or entered

How Calculated    When an assignment is first made and no work has been done, the Remaining Work field contains the same amount as the total Work field. After actual work is reported on this assignment, Project calculates remaining work according to the following formula:

Remaining Work = Work - Actual Work

Best Uses    Add the Remaining Work field to the timephased portion of the Task Usage or Resource Usage view when you want to edit, display, or filter for remaining work information. Edit the Remaining Work field for the assignment when you need to increase or reduce the amount of work that's needed to complete the task.

Example    The "Write proposal" task assigned to Chris is scheduled for 40 hours of work. Chris has just informed you that eight hours of additional work will be needed to complete this task. You add the Remaining Work field to the Task Usage view and edit the field to add eight more hours of remaining work for this assignment.

Remarks    When you enter percent complete or total actual work, Project might reschedule remaining work around the status date. If you prefer, you can leave these tracking fields in the project as originally scheduled, even if completed work is shown in the future or remaining work is shown in the past. You can do this in the Project Options dialog box.

You can set the status date to a date other than today's date in the Project Information dialog box.