Planned vs Actual

Hi, There is an issue that I have been facing lately while managing projects that I wanted your team to address:

In a given project, when I set due dates and the task is overdue, it shows that in overdue tasks but as soon as I change the status to complete after the due date has passed, nowhere does it show that the task was completed with delay. The status says completed and the timeline also displays them in green colour. Even when I open the analytics tab to view project report, the report does not tell me that tasks were completed after delay.
I want a clear indication of which of the project tasks were delayed and by what number of days even after they have been completed, how do I achieve this in Wrike?
I also want a comparison of planned duration vs actual duration taken to complete all the tasks. Moreover, I want the timeline to indicate the actual dates that tasks were completed on and not just the dates that they were planned to be completed on.

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Comments

Kazuhiko Tanaka

I think so too. It's good request.

Permanently deleted user

Hi guys, can you vote for this request and feel free to add any use-cases here to help our team better understand the implementation. Thank you!

Also, Vincent shared a workaround he uses for this which might interest you 👍

Julien Thiery

Hi Guys,

Quick up here.

I went through the other post too, but the other one is mostly about time tracking and budget tracking.

Here I join the initial request, about Project Initial Planning VS. Project Executed Planning - Comparing the actul project execution vs. the baseline of the project.

2 examples attached, where you can see with a shading and/or overlay the different between both.

This is really key in addition of the lead and lag management when following project.

thansks much

Julien

Edmond Jakaj

Hello everybody,

I have the same requirement and I really need this feature. Delays have to appear graphically somewhere. I understand that Wrike is designed to be updated day by day and we do so. But, for instance, if the start date and due date of a task are written in a contractual agreement, I really don't want to modify them in Wrike because also terms in delays are specified in a contract with our customer. So, in this case a Gantt chart with delay bar would come extra helpful. This is what I am expecting.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hey guys, thank you for sharing your use-cases here 🙂 Just wanted to mention recently released Baselines in Gantt Chart here. They enable you to compare your project's current schedule to the schedule it had on a particular date in the past. Please check them out and let me know what you think 👍

Lisa Thompson

Adding on to this conversation, which I understand is a few years old - I, too, would like to see projected vs actual. My ideal project setup:

Table/List Field Options:

Duration (How long this task is expected to take with the option to NOT change when editing dates. 10 days is 10 days, regardless of start/end/completed dates and adjustments)
Start Date (This date should have the option to automatically pre-populate based on dependencies and actual completion dates of predecessors, but still have the flexibility to be manually adjusted)
Due Date (Automatically calculated based on SET duration and start date)
Actual Completed Date (Date the task was actually completed, able to manually edit - Option for this date to pre-populate start dates for any successors.)
Actual Duration (start date compared to actual completion date to identify the total number of days it actually took)

The priority of the requests are as follows:

Make a way for duration date to be SET. Not change when we work/update dates.
Allow dependencies to pre-populate start dates (based on predecessors and then calculate due dates based on the SET duration)
Actual Completion Date that can be better reflected in Gantt Charts and reports to show when tasks are not on target.
Actual Duration date or formula option to calculate this (Start Date to Actual Completed Date - for the life of me cannot figure this out, if it is currently available)
Able to edit completion dates! Do not understand the logic of this field being un-editable and only sets to the date marked in Wrike.

I have been trying to find the best way to replicate the above preferences, and it has not been easy. I overall made a templated project, and took a screen shot of my set duration expectations. I then have to constantly update my durations as I work on dates because they change with my date changes (even if I just update start date). The actual completion date I realize are “custom fields” but they do not reflect as desired in reports and charts. Any insight that I have overlooked would be helpful.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Thank you for your detailed feedback @Lisa Thompson!

In this thread I showed another Community member how you can track due/completed dates in Wrike reports using calculations. Please check it out - I hope it can be helpful! Completion dates are currently not editable because you can edit the due dates but it's helpful to be able to track and compare due dates with the days when tasks were actually completed.

I'm passing your feedback on to the Product team now; please let me know if you have any questions - I'll be happy to help.

Welcome to the Community! 🙂

Ash Hallett

I am amazed this isn't already a feature to view planned vs actual dates in the gantt chart view.

Are there any updates from the Product Team as to wether this is on the roadmap at all? Would be very disappointing if it's not something you're looking to build, it's such a clear and obvious requirement.

Thanks,

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Welcome to the Community @Ash Hallett! Have you tried using Gantt Chart snapshots to compare dates? You can create a snapshot for particular dates and compare the deliverables using it.

Jeanne Gonzalves

Following. If this worked, I might be able to use this for our roadmap too. I wish the gannt chart bar would show original dates in red if it's delayed. My only workaround is to update the due dates, leave the start date, and display a custom notes column to show Due: MMDDYYYY

Elizaveta Bogdanova

H! Have you tried using Gantt Chart snapshots to compare your projects' states at different periods of time? Also, it's possible to highlight overdue tasks on the chart:

Please let me know if that could help!

Jeroen van Hoorn

Is there any update from Wrike related to have a clear visibility on the difference in Planned vs Actual timing of project tasks?

Using threads from this community, I have implemented formula's to show the Actual Completion Date of the task and then as a result the Delta between the planned and actual timing. However this includes manual insertion of the completion date, poor visibility of this valuable information onto the Gantt chart. Below re-cap of disadvantages from my viewpoint:

Manual insertion of the completion date is needed per project task.
Delay is not visible when the task is not yet marked as completed. For example data X retrieval, while the waiting is ongoing, the duration of the delay is not visible. It becomes visible after data X is known (=task completed).
Data collecting: to use the data for data X monitoring in excel, data from Wrike to be extracted manually per project(task)?
Consistent/accurate way of working needed from all team members: do not update the planned dates with the intention as a status update upon completion of the task.
Poor visibility of delta timing in Gantt Chart.

Reading about Gantt Chart snapshots, with this functionality. The above needs can be fullfilled?

Thanks in advance for a feedback,

Kind regards,

Jeroen

Cansu Yetisgin

Hi @Jeroen van Hoorn, thank you for taking the time to share in detail feedback. I've passed it on to our team. There are no plans in the short term to have enhancements in these areas, but we'll be sure to update you if there are any changes.

Christine BROMLEY

I cannot understand why a simple product feedback from 4 years ago that is very basic necessity of project management has not been addressed. We as the customers are having to add non-value added work to a product that we pay heavily to use. I would like to see a timeline for when Wrike will be adding this feature. We will halt new usage of Wrike until a few simple features are added as part of the every day package.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Christine BROMLEY, thanks a lot for sharing your feedback!

Have you tried using Calculated Custom Fields for that? If you need more info on how to use them to calculate different data points, please let me know and I'll be happy to ask your Admin team to reach out and provide help 👍

Christine BROMLEY

Hi Lisa

Our team already has too many custom fields. I am not introducing any more to fill gaps in the product. It is one of the top 5 complaints from our users - the answer cannot be custom fields for all our needs.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Thank you for clarifying @Christine BROMLEY, and for providing additional feedback here.

Gabriela Streich

I need the same thing; I need to compare planned vs. actuals (in my case hours charged at a task or project level). Looked at Wrike training videos and I could not find anything on this topic, so I end up on the community chat. I am surprised to see that this is an issue opened since 2018, and 5 years later we do not have o solution yet. Comparing planned vs. actuals (no matter if we talk about dates or hours charged) is the most basic functionality for management of work. When a tool is advertised to help manage capacity, the functionality to compare planned vs. actuals is a must. How come this is not a priority or the development team?

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Gabriela Streich, welcome to the Community! Thank you for sharing your feedback!

Please let me share some detail on how this Product Feedback forum works. We have a voting system here where any Wrike user can upvote a suggestion when visiting the Community. We have a process for reporting all suggestions, feedback, and votes from this forum to our Product team, and they continuously review all of this data.
Once any suggestion reaches the 60 votes threshold, we add a Product status to it. You can check out more info on that and on the list of statuses in this post. So we'll be adding a status here soon when the original post reaches 60 upvotes.
Our team can't commit to working on all or even most of the suggestions in this forum, but at the same time, feedback from this channel is still important to them. As an example, here's the list of Community-generated suggestions that the team has released last year.
I hope this info was helpful, but if you have any questions, please let me know.

Riccardo Mantellato

Hi all, I share the need of quickly comparing the actual vs planned Gantt chart of my procject, and share it with my collegues. I found out that when I select a snapshot wrike shows me the differences between the actual and the planned Gantt chart, which I think is somewhat sufficient to effectively visualize the delays. The problem is that I can't share this with my supervisor in my periodic report - so they have to enter Wrike -> go to the right project -> find the correct snapshot. Or I must take a snap and send them a jpeg... is there a way to this in Wrike? Thanks

Ric

Juan Muttoni

Hi @Riccardo Mantellato, welcome to the Community! You can share the Snapshot of the current state and from a previous date so that your colleagues can compare the progress of your projects.

You can also share your snapshots with non-Wrike users. Is this what you were looking for?

I'd also, like to mention that you can visit our New to Community forum to get the most out of your experience with our Community 🙂

Riccardo Mantellato

Hello Juan, thanks for your answer. No, it is not what I'm looking for, what I'm looking for is the possibility to share in only one image the difference between planned and actual. In few words, I want to share the exact picture I pasted in my last comment. I find it perfect to visualize delays in the project, quickly and effectively.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Thank you for getting back to us @Riccardo Mantellato!

I will pass your feedback to our product team 👍

In the meantime, please let us know if there's anything else we can help you with!

Sai Ramesh

Hi Team,

Has there been any update on this requirement, other than Gantt Chart Snapshots? Just want an inhouse way to track the project. Comparing the planned project timeline to an actual timeline? The Snapshots dont seem to be doing this. Unless there is a specific video that can be shared that highlights the usage of this functionality with an example. Could this be as sample as adding couple of fields as "actual start date" and the "actual complertion date" which can either be manually populated by the PM or populates that date, when the assignee marks the task complete? I mean this could be relevant for projects that have timelines in days and for durations, it could be and added element of time along with the date format, for hourly projects.

Juan Muttoni

Hello @Sai Ramesh, welcome to the Community and sorry for the long delay! I'm afraid that we don't have updates to share about this suggestion at the moment. Thank you for sharing your use case in detail with us, I've passed your comment on to our Product Develpment Team 👍

Additionally, feel free to explore our New to Community forum to fully leverage your experience with our Community 🙂