Aligning effort with time spent for accurate ETC and EAC reproting

I've been searching the community posts and I haven't found anything to indicate the following is a feature, so this may belong in the product feedback category... In order to accurately track estimate to completion, it would be helpful when you mark a task as "completed," the "effort" field on that task will automatically update to match the total time logged against it essentially making the planned effort align with the actual time spent on the task once it's completed. Currently when calculating the ETC the remaining effort is factored in, which if there is time left after completing the task makes it appear that there is more time to be spent.

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Pietro Poli

Hi @Adam McRae
Are you sure this doesn't create a misalignment between planned work (Effort) and reported work (Time Spent).

If I planned 3 hours of time for an activity and I spent less or more, it's important for me to know the possible deviation, so as to improve my planning process and/or understand the reasons for the greater time spent.

Maybe it's just my need

Adam McRae

@Pietro Poli that is a good point and is definitely something I want to have data on while the task/project are in progress. Are you tracking ETC on your projects? I would be curious to hear how other people are doing it.

Rachel Harvey

@Adam McRae We have a custom field called "Budgeted Effort" where we are storing the initial planned effort so that we can see the deviation later, but we are manually adjusting Effort to match Time Spent when the task is completed.

Pietro Poli

HI @Adam McRae sorry I didn't received notification of your mention.
Actually I only track:
- Effort
- Time Spent
- Difference between these two numbers

We don't need ETC or EAC in Wrike.