FAQ - Project Monitor- Delivery Effort

Why, by downloading the plugin, two gadgets appeared: Project Monitor- Effort Tracking & Project Monitor- Delivery Tracking? What is the difference between the two? Do I have to use both?

The idea of including both gadgets in a single plug-in is linked to the desire to allow, to the various corporate figures, to benefit from different information simultaneously on the same dashboard. In this way, it will be possible to accurately monitor both effort that elapsed.

For example by using them on the same project, you will have two equally important and complementary informations: Effort Tracking let you see if the estimates coincide with what is actually produced and then how much you have been "good" in the definition of technical estimates. Delivery Tracking, however, will give you an indication of the actual progress of the project from the theoretical one that should be based on the business Duration.
As you can see from the image below, using the two gadgets for the same project, you may have informations that are significantly different. The integration between the two will help you reflect on what may be the reasons of earliness/lateness of your project.

This doesn't mean that using a gadget precludes to use the other one; every gadget is untied from the other.

Do I have to enter compulsorily Project Start Date and Project End Date? What do they indicate? 

Yes, it is necessary to insert them if you want to use Project Monitor- Delivery Tracking. This is because this type of gadget measures the elapsed, slippage, and therefore it is essential to give a time reference against which to evaluate it.

Project Start Date and Project End Dates represent the start/end dates of the project commercially defined.

What does that mean,  the green / red rectangle at the top?

Inside the rectangle it is contained an indication of how many days of advance/delay has our project than has been budgeted commercially. The rectangle is green in case of advance, red in case of delay.
NB: In the second image the Actual gray bar is dashed because the calculated projection lasts for many days; it is a contrivance which allows to make visible the date scheduled for the conclusion.

What happens if I use Project Monitor- Delivery Tracking for projects whose Project Start Date is planned for the future?

In the bottom bar, the Actual bar, it will appear the info "Not in progress yet" to inform you of the fact that no progress has not yet been recorded on the project since this has not yet begun commercially. At the time when the current date will correspond with the Project Start Date, the Actual bar will be populated with the % relative to the time spent until then and reporting the first log date as the starting date.

What happens when the issues are all closed?

The percentage contained in the Actual bar (bottom bar), which returns the current status of your project, will be equal to 100% (and therefore totally green), because all the tasks have been completed.

What happens when you logged more than had been estimated originally (which is ∑ Time Spent  >   ∑ Original Estimate ) ?

In this situation we have to distinguish two cases:

• The issues are all closed: see "What happens when the issues are all closed?"
• There is at least an open issue: it isn't possible to make a future prediction on the project slippage, but, as there are still open issues, it is expected that the project is still in progress (hence the 99+ percent).

Inside the banner is an indication of how many days exceed the estimate.