Work Metrics

Critical Inputs

-Logged hours show how much time has been tracked so far.
-Remaining Estimate is displayed as the best case – worst case range for how long it will take to finish work that hasn’t been completed yet.

These are the most important metrics because they keep the schedule up-to-date and together they represent Total Work, which is the basis for calculating all of the other Work Metrics (except the Work Limit). Remaining estimate is used to calculate expected Start and Finish dates and the estimate decrements automatically when people track time.

Control time spent

-Work Limit is cap for controlling the number of hours expected to work on an item. Setting a limit is optional.
-Work Limit Delta tracks the limit against Total Work. Negative Deltas mean Total Work is under the Work Limit (that’s a good thing!).

Managing Hours

-Clipped Hours represent the work that won’t be completed because the Target Finish date is set to “Stop Scheduling.” The remaining hours for those tasks are removed from the schedule and people move on to other work. Because of Predictive Scheduling, you’ll know what is affected in advance of the Target Date so the work can be prioritized, assigned to other people or reduced in scope. In Project View a Clipped Scheduling Alert on the schedule bar shows which tasks are affected. See the lesson about Target Dates to see what this looks like.

-Uncertain Hours show the difference between the best case and worst-case estimate. Some uncertainty should be expected, but if you’re concerned about the gap between Expected Finish and Latest Finish, then these hours need to be reduced. Find the tasks with the greatest number of uncertain hours and figure out how to improve the estimate. To do this, start in the Project Grid, set it to display Tasks, add the Uncertain Hours column and use it to sort the Grid. Another way to monitor Uncertain Hours would be with a Task List, Metrics Tally or Properties widget on a Dashboard. See Introduction to Schedule Bars and learn about managing uncertainty in your work.

-Unused Hours are the hours left over when an assignment is marked done before the Remaining Estimate reaches 0-0. The hours are no longer part of the schedule and they can be zeroed out in the Assignment table or the Hours Editor on the Task Edit Panel. This is a helpful metric if you’re billing for time because if you committed to a certain number of hours and don’t use them all in one area, you can make sure they get allocated elsewhere. The metric could also be used to improve estimating by comparing Unused Hours to what was logged and see if would be reasonable to have a smaller estimate in the future, or one with less uncertainty.

–On Hold Hours are the estimate hours that are remaining when a task is on hold. These hours are reduced when someone tracks time to an item while it is on hold. On Hold Hours are data filter aware and roll up to Sub-Folder, Project, and Package.