iBE.net allows you to create status networks or workflows to monitor your projects. For example the workflow stages in the life-cycle of a project might be: idea, approval, setup, planning & budgeting, execution, benefits realization and closing. All projects of a type associated with this workflow would pass through each stage in each project's life-cycle, allowing you to monitor the total cost, value or effort of projects in each stage.

Project status or workflow is optional and does not impact project or task completion status, financials or performance monitoring. It is best used as a parallel tracking mechanism which applies to the whole project.

Click here for more information on setting up work-flows in iBE.net.

Click for background information on work-flow, including how to link it to your project type.

As well as using workflow you can track project status through task completion. As project plans, schedules, resources, time/expenses, costs and billing rates change the system is constantly keeping track of actual vs. planned effort, cost and revenues to give a complete picture of earned value and project performance.

At a glance views of project status and progress can be seen from the progress icon in the left column of the project list and project task list. This icon (highlighted above) is shaded in blue to give quick visual feedback on the % complete, with the remainder of the icon color coded as follows:

• Grey for a task which has not yet started, nor is it due to start
• Green for a task which is on or ahead of schedule
• Orange for a task which is behind schedule but recoverable
• Red for a task which is already late, typically because the planned finish date is already in the past
• Blue for a task which is complete.

To mark a task as 100% complete click on the same progress icon. It will turn blue and you will get a confirmation message that it is complete. If you are not the owner of the task but an assigned resource you will be asked to confirm if you meant to complete the whole task for everyone assigned, or just your own portion of it.

If you completed a task by mistake then click on the same icon to undo or revert back the percent complete status. If you saved or closed the project in between marking a task as complete and re-opening, the percent complete is recalculated based on actual effort / (actual + remaining effort). So it might not result in the same percent complete that you started with.

Click here to learn more in detail about how task traffic light status is calculated.

If you pause the mouse over the progress icon or click in the wrench next to the icon (1) - depending on the value of "Hide call-outs by default" in your user preferences - you will see a popup with more detailed information on that task including:

2.1 The % complete shown in red if it is less than it should be at this time vs. green if it is equal to or more than it should be

2.2 The planned effort that should have been expended to date; the percent complete the task should have reached by now (based on today vs. start and end dates) times the planned effort

2.3 The total planned effort. Very astute readers will spot a bug because planned effort until today should never be more than total planned effort - this has since been fixed !

3.1 The forecast hours on completing the task, or actual hours + remaining hours to complete the task (also called Estimate at Complete). This bar is green if forecast hours < original planned effort and red if forecast hours at completion > original planned effort

3.2 The number of hours you have earned until now, based on the planned effort and the percent complete. If the task is 50% complete then whatever your actual effort, you in effect "earned" half the planned effort. Click here for a more detailed explanation of earned value. This bar is green if earned to date > actuals (by more than a given margin) and red if it is less than the actuals

3.3 The actual effort booked to the task until now.