Tabsters Help Center

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S-curves are mathematical graphs that are very useful in project management for planning, monitoring, controlling, analyzing and forecasting project status, progress and performance.

In Tabsters, they show the evolution of the percentage of completion over time, and provide a historical record of trends and changes encountered during the evolution of the project.

In this graph, the horizontal axis corresponds to the time progression and the vertical axis to the progression of advancement in %.

The circle markers represent the date consolidation chosen for the graph (here, the chosen period is in weeks). Each marker therefore represents a one-week evolution over time, accompanied by the corresponding percentage progression.

The yellow line corresponds to the current date.

The curves on a graph are composed as follows:

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• The initial progress curve (light blue curve in the photo above), corresponds to the progress of your projects / batches / etc., calculated according to the initial dates (dates corresponding to the first start / end dates entered for the element concerned), considering a constant linear progression of the element's progress between these two dates, until 100% is reached.

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• The theoretical progress curve (red curve on the photo above), corresponds to the progress of your projects / batches / etc., calculated according to actual dates (start / end dates entered for the item concerned), considering a constant progression of the item's progress between these two dates, until 100% is reached.

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• The actual progress curve (dark blue curve in the photo above), corresponds to the current progress of your projects / batches / etc., calculated according to the progress entered by date.

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This progression is the actual progress of your projects / batches / tasks / etc., and is therefore not projected over time like the initial and theoretical progression curves.

These curves enable you to evaluate the current progress of your projects / batches / tasks / etc. in relation to the theory, to assess progress problems encountered and areas for improvement.

To create an S-curve graph, go to your roadmap and click on the fourth display screen, "Graph".

Then click on the "Chart parameters" cogwheel icon at the top right of your screen.

By default, your graphic will be of the Custom type.

Click on the yellow text, and in the pop-up window, choose "Chart from template" > the "Progression trend" chart.

Several parameters are available to customize your progress chart

Caption:

• "Show" : Boolean parameter for displaying or not the chart legend.
• "Position": Drop-down menu to define the position of the legend on the chart(top, left, right, bottom).

Label:

• "Show": Boolean parameter to display or not the percentage of progress corresponding to the markers.

Line:

• "Marker shape" : Drop-down menu to define marker shape(circle, triangle, rhombus, rectangle, pentagon or none).

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Calculation:

• "Consolidation date": Drop-down menu allowing you to define the desired time period between each marker(year, quarter, month, day).
  This parameter allows you to adjust your graph according to the time span over which your projects / batches / etc. are spread.

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• "Progress calculation mode" : Drop-down menu allowing you to define the progression calculation mode on which you want your graph to be displayedburned, average, complexity, free or none).

As with other views, it is possible to apply filters to the graph in order to redefine its scope, by filtering on location, project type, etc., for example.

It should also be noted that the theoretical and actual progress curves are recalculated according to the "Progress calculation mode" parameter selected, and if the dates of the elements are modified along the way.

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If the progression calculation method chosen is the burnedthen the curve displayed will be the burned progression and not the progression.

If the progression calculation mode selected is complexity, the curve displayed will be the progression based on the weighted average of each element.

If the progression calculation mode chosen is the free mode, the curve displayed will be the linear progression between the start and end dates of the elements concerned.
The theoretical progression will always be equal to 0, as the application does not calculate progression with this calculation mode.

If the progression calculation mode selected is none, the curve displayed will correspond to the average progression calculation.

As with the project portfolio and project levels, the S-curve is also available for global portfolios and global projects.

It should be noted, however, that as these levels are not strictly speaking part of the project hierarchy in Tabstersproject portfolio, project, workpackage, action, task) but are an additional level which are consolidations of different portfolios/projects, these levels do not have their own way of calculating progression.
In other words, at the level where the S-curve graph is generated in these cases, the S-curves generated are based on the consolidation of the progress of the child elements (i.e. project portfolio, project, etc. in the case of a global project portfolio , and project, workpackage, etc. in the case of a global project) and the progress calculation mode defined at the level of the project portfolio or project level.

This case makes sense if you filter the global project portfolio or global project on a single project portfolio or project, for example.

The S-curve at global level will then consolidate the progression of child elements, but will not take into account the progression calculation mode defined on the graph (in the case where you wish to display a graph at global level in burned calculation mode, while the child element is in averaged calculation mode).
The graph displayed will only take into account the child element's progression calculation mode, and will show an S-curve graph corresponding to the S-curve graph in averaged progression calculation mode at child element level, and not in burned calculation mode, because as previously mentioned, there is no calculation mode at global level. The graph is therefore based on the progression calculation mode of element n-1.