Each task in iBE is assigned a progress or grey, green, orange, red or blue - or green/orange/red and partially blue - traffic light to give a quick visual indication of that task's progress against the original plan. This traffic light, which is calculated each time the task is updated directly or indirectly via time-booked or resource changes, is shown in the diagram above. You can also click on this icon to mark the task as complete.

The task traffic light status compliments any workflow status and/or % complete and earned value metrics on the task.

Any task which is completed is marked with a blue circle to indicate it is done. Any task which has not yet started and is not due to start until the future is grey to indicate that the user does not need to pay much attention to its status right now.

There are three ways to calculate traffic light status for a task, depending on the task type progress method settings:

1. Based on dates as outlined in this step
2. Based on age in current workflow status compared to plan as outlined in the next step
3. Based on earned value schedule variance or schedule performance index as outlined in the last step of this article.

If the task type is set up to calculate traffic light status based on dates, then any task which has started and is ahead of schedule, because it was not yet due to start or it is almost done ahead of schedule, is green.

Any task which is behind schedule but recoverable, because it has started late but the planned finish date is still in the future so we still can finish it on time, is orange.

Finally any task which is behind schedule and should have already finished by now is red.

In addition, the traffic light status is partially shaded blue depending on progress with:

• One quarter of the traffic light blue when percent complete is between 5% and 35%
• Half the traffic light shaded blue when percent complete is between 35% and 65%
• Three quarters of the traffic light shaded blue when percent complete is between 65% and 95%
• Complete blue circle when the percent complete is 95% or higher (100% = done).

When the task type's progress method is configured to show progress based on workflow the age or time since the task reached its current state is compared to how long the task should be in this status before proceeding to the next workflow step, as typically outlined in a service level agreement. Your system administrator will have maintained an "Orange Threshold %" for workflow measured status on the progress method:

• If the current step is not yet due to be confirmed, i.e. this task has not outlived it useful life in the current state, then the traffic light is green
• If the current step is meant to have been completed by now, according to an internal or external service level agreement, then the system calculates how late we are as a % of the desired response or lead time for the current workflow step. If the late % is less than the orange threshold workflow % in the progress method the traffic light is orange
• If the task workflow action is taking longer than promised by more than the orange threshold workflow % then the traffic light is red.

Click here to see how to set up service level agreements and workflow templates.

When the task type's progress method is set-up to show traffic light status based on either schedule variance or schedule performance index, earned value metrics are used.

When the progress method is based on schedule variance the task's schedule cost variance is checked:

• If the schedule cost variance is positive the traffic light icon is green
• If the schedule cost variance is negative but by less % than the orange variance threshold, the traffic light icon is orange
• If the schedule cost variance is negative by more than the orange variance threshold (%), the traffic light icon is red
• If the schedule cost variance is not defined perhaps due to lack of cost rates then the schedule hours variance is used instead.

When the progress method is based on schedule performance, the task's schedule performance index is checked:

• If the schedule performance index based on cost is greater than 1 the traffic light icon is green
• If the schedule performance index for cost is greater than the orange variance threshold (%) and 1 the traffic light icon is orange
• If the schedule performance index for cost is less than the orange variance threshold (%) the traffic light icon is red
• If the schedule performance index for cost is not defined due to lack of cost rates then the schedule performance index on the basis of hours is used instead.