Data Management Capabilities > Managing Plans > Execution of Plans > Track Work
  
Track Work
Depending on how your plan is set up, tracking work might be necessary to start and complete activities and milestones. You can track work all at once when completing an activity or incrementally by entering work hours as they are completed.
For a manual plan:
• When the first activity is being tracked, the actual start date of the plan is considered as default Plan Start date of the plan. Any new ASAP activity without any predecessor will be scheduled from this date.
• When you are creating a new ASAP child activity (without any predecessor) inside a started summary, this child activity will be scheduled from the actual start of the summary.
Following are the restrictions in a summary activity whose actual start date is after the plan start date:
• You cannot create a subplan under this summary without a reference.
• You cannot move in and move out the activity from this summary activity.
Project managers and activity owners can track activity work.
If you have permission to track work for an activity, then the following actions are enabled for you:
• From the Schedule table, select Track Work from the right-click actions menu of an activity.
• From the Tasks table, select Track Work from the right-click actions menu of an activity.
• From the activity information page, select Actions > Track Work.
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When you track work for an activity or milestone, you cannot specify as many values as an assigned resource. However, when you update the work completed for an activity, the values you enter are distributed equally to all assigned resource tasks. For more information, see Track Activity Work.
Project managers and users assigned to an activity as a resource can track activity work using resource assignment tasks.
The track work icon appears in the Schedule table next to the activities to which you are assigned as a resource. If the icon does not appear, ensure the Assignment column has been included in the table view.
If you have permission to track resource assignment work, then the following actions are enabled for you:
• From the Schedule table:
◦ Click the track work icon that appears next to activities to which you have been assigned as a resource.
◦ Select the checkboxes next to multiple activities to which you have been assigned as a resource and then select Actions > Edit Multiple Assignments.
• From the Tasks or My Tasks table, select Track Work from the right-click actions menu of a resource assignment. Resource assignments can be distinguished by the resource assignment object type indicator .
• From the information page of a resource assignment, select Actions > Track Work.
• Navigate to the information page of an activity. Use the Resources table located under the Related Objects tab to view information about your assignment and track work.
• If you are assigned as a resource to a deliverable activity, you can use the Track New Work action to track assignment work while also adding one or more subject objects to the activity. For more information, see Track New Work.
For more information, see Track Resource Assignment Work.
Summary Activity
You cannot track work for a summary activity.
Summary activity progress is calculated from the work tracked for its child activities. For more information, see Summary Activity Calculation Example.
Use the Edit action to track work for action items assigned to you. For more information, see Editing an Action Item.
Use the Edit action to track work for deliverables assigned to you. For more information, see Edit a Deliverable.
When tracking work, the options available to you depend on the following factors:
Plan Execution
If the plan is in automatic execution mode, you can only track work when objects are in the In Process state. For more information, see Auto-Execution State and Available Actions.
Linked Deliverables
The following constraints apply when the Link deliverables with project activities option is enabled for the project:
◦ You cannot track work for a milestone that has associated deliverables. Milestone work is calculated from the work tracked for its associated deliverables.
◦ You cannot assign resources to a milestone, and therefore resource assignment tasks cannot be used to track milestone work.
◦ If an activity has an associated deliverable, tracking work for either the deliverable or the activity updates the data for both.
Preferences
The Keep Actual Work preference controls whether the number of hours entered in the Actual Work field is preserved once an activity is completed. If set to No, when you complete an activity the Actual Work attribute equals the Work attribute.
To set this preference, navigate to the Utilities page under Site, Organization, or the individual context (Project, Program, or Product). Click the Preference Management link and expand the Project Planning node.
For more information, see Project Planning Preferences and Preference Management.