How to calculate actual task duration and use it for task performance analysis

Often it is necessary to know actual task performance duration. This can be necessary for team project management when you need to control how much time the performance of each task takes and compare actual duration vs. estimated. This is easy to do with a help of special team task and time management groupware that allows tracking and reporting tasks time.

VIP Task Manager is special team tracker software that allows assigning and reporting team tasks. It allows planning estimated task duration for each task, setting task actual duration and comparing them. However when it is required to define actual duration of a task VIP Task Manager can help as well. As team task tracker groupware VIP Task Manager records dates when task was started and completed. This feature allows easy and automatic calculation of actual task duration. You need to create additional task attribute with formula which will calculate actual task duration.

Each task within VIP Task Manager has two standard attributes - Estimated time and Actual time that should be entered manually. These two attributes can be compared with a help of the charts (most convenient charts for comparison are Bar and Column diagrams). After actual task duration (from start of its execution till competition) will be calculated it can be corrected precisely by project manager and entered as Actual time of the task.

Dates when task was started and completed are related with task status: system records date when task started when this task has status "In Progress" and date completed when status is "Complete" (These settings can be changed by workflow customization). To calculate actual task duration within VIP Task Manager you need to:

• start your task management application
• use Options -> General to determinate format of task duration (default, in hours, in dates)
• create additional task attribute of Duration type. Name it "Task duration"
• input formula for this custom field - $date_completed-$date_started
• enable "Task duration" attribute for all tasks where actual duration calculation required
• make column "Task duration" visible on Task List or Task Tree
• create task, set Estimated time
• set task status "In Progress"
• when task is done change status to "Complete"
• watch "Task duration" column to define how long the task performance last
• make task duration correction if needed and enter it as Actual time
• use Bar or Column diagram to compare Actual time (or Task duration) vs. Estimated time
• use Pie diagram to define part of each task's duration within all tasks