Post

4 followers Follow
1
Avatar

Custom Field - How to use a Task Item on a Project Item Custom Field

Hi,
 
I wonder if anyone can help me.  I hope what I'm trying to do is quite simple and I've just not been able to work it out.
 
High level, I want to work out what stage a project is currently at based on the % complete of certain tasks in the project.  I have setup project templates, so I know that all of the task names are going to be consistent throughout the projects.  I was hoping to use a custom field to do doing something along the following lines:
 
IF(In($PercentCompleted < 100, $Name = 'Welcome Meeting'), 'Waiting Welcome Meeting', IF(In($PercentCompleted < 100, $Name = 'Scoping Meeting'), 'Waiting Scoping Meeting', 'Next Stage etc'))
But then would carry on based on what the task it is and what I want the text to be.  I then want to display that on the Project Property Card as an overall project level stage.
 
Is this something that can be easily achieved?  I've had a few attempts at it and done some searching of the knowledge base and previous community posts but haven't been able to find a solution.  Not sure if a Project level custom field has a way of seeing a Task level item?  I know why when I setup a Project custom field if I use $Name I presume it's picking the Project Name and not the Task Name, does anyone know if there is a syntax I can use to pull back the Task Name?
 
Many Thanks
Andrew
Andrew Froude Answered

Please sign in to leave a comment.

9 comments

0
Avatar

Andrew,

 

A simple solution might be to use a project-template pre-loaded with the project phases you desire, then add relevant tasks – and their dependencies - under each phase. 

As your tasks completion-percentages are loaded, it will be reflected in the overall phase completion-percentage.

-Jon

Jonathan Lang 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink
0
Avatar

Thanks for the response Jon.  When you say project phases, I presume you mean Milestone tasks?  if that's the case, unfortunately that wouldn't really work for us as it would basically mean moving all tasks to be Milestones and then having a duplicate tasks underneath.

If there are any other ideas or suggestion that would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Andrew

Andrew Froude 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink
0
Avatar

Actually I meant tasks, not Milestones.  We built the following tasks into our Project Template that every Clarizen project comes pre-loaded with:

1) Initiating

2) Planning

3) Executing

4) Closing

5) Monitoring & Controlling (in our organization this task spans the entire project & is reserved for PMs to manage their time to the project)

Use whichever phases work best for your organization, or create several templates - one for each project "type" (i.e. - Infrastructure, Software Development, Construction, etc.)

Once PMs build their Work Plan and tasks are loaded under each task, these template-tasks (Initiating, Planning, etc.) then become "Parent Tasks" (Clarizen's term) which automatically calculate their percentage completion based on their Child Tasks' percentage completion.  Hope this helps!

Jonathan Lang 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink
0
Avatar

Ah ok, thanks that makes sense.

So would I then be able to report on these Parent Tasks at an overall Project level on the Project Property Card essentially based on what the current task is do you know?  So for example, if I've completed all of the sub-tasks of 1) Initiating and 2) Planning, and I'm part way through the tasks on 3) Executing, I would want the overall project status to be 'Currently Executing'.

Thanks

Andrew

Andrew Froude 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink
0
Avatar

Hi Andrew,


I don't believe that is a function of the Project Property Card, but what you're looking for can be visualized in the Gantt view of the Work plan.  The Gantt bars representing each task darken according to percentage-complete.  So - in your example - the tasks representing Initiating and Planning would show as competely darkened, but the Executing bar would only be darkened the percentage it is complete.

More info on this (& screen-shots) can be found here: https://success.clarizen.com/hc/en-us/articles/205712708-Projects#interactive-gantt

Hope this helps!

Jonathan Lang 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink
0
Avatar

Thanks for your help Jon.  Unfortunately that won't help, my ultimate goal was to then build a report on this custom field that allowed me to run a report for all current open projects for my team and see the stage of each project.

 

Thanks for your assistance though.

 

If anyone else has any ideas etc then please let me know.  I did come across this article that looks similar to my requirement but not sure how I would do that in my scenario..... https://success.clarizen.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203991548-Custom-field-based-on-project-task

Andrew Froude 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink
0
Avatar

Has anyone else got any ideas for this?

 

Thanks

Andrew

Andrew Froude 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink
0
Avatar

Hi Andrew, 

 

I don't know if you found a way around this but I did something similar using roll up dates. I created a new roll up date field for each phase of the project and then tagged all tasks with an equivalent to the stage they were in. The field rolled up showing the minimum date, or start date of each phase, therefore making it possible to see which phase the project was in. I'm going to match it to a pick list next but at the moment I use a report to show on a graph the projects transitioning through the stages by month. Hopefully that helps you!

Dee 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink
0
Avatar

Hey Andrew,

Did you get a solution for this?

I am currently trying to achieve much the same thing but have hit some road blocks.

My plan is to have the existing field Project Phase update to reflect the current milestone and then have a custom field for the current task so that these can easily be reported on.

Thanks,

Nyssa

Nyssa Woods 0 votes
Comment actions Permalink