Planned Completion - Milestones not showing progress

Question

Planned Completion - Milestones not showing progress

Chris Lowell 0

I have a column for planned percentage complete.

All tasks are calculating their planned completion to the baseline apart from the mile stones. they are showing 0% planned completion.

How do I fix this?

0 comments

3 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

John Project 49,720 Volunteer Moderator

Chris Lowell,

There is no "planned complete" for a milestone. A milestone is either met (complete) and not (incomplete). So, if the milestone was met, mark it's % complete as 100%.

John

0 comments

Answer 2

Jess-Q 12,700 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @Chris Lowell

Regarding your issue, could you help me with a few details so I can better understand your setup?

Is your Planned % Complete field a custom field or a built-in field? You can check by going to the Project tab > Custom Fields > set Type to Number and see if it's listed there with a formula.
If it is a custom field, is there a formula assigned to it? In the same Custom Fields dialog, select the field and check if the Formula button shows an existing formula or if it says None.
Have you set a baseline for your project?
What version of Microsoft Project are you using? (e.g., Project Professional 2021, Project for Microsoft 365, etc.)
Could you provide a screenshot of your task sheet showing the Planned % Complete column, including the milestones that are showing 0%?

Hope to hear back from you soon. 

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Chris Lowell 0 Reputation points

2026-06-02T13:46:40.7433333+00:00

Hi Jess,

Yes I made a a custom field to show planned progress. the current date was beyond the mile stone but it shows 0% planned completion.
Jess-Q 12,700 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-02T15:14:49.79+00:00

Hi @Chris Lowell,

Could you please help answer the questions I shared earlier, and if possible, provide a screenshot of your Task Sheet showing the Planned % Complete column and the milestones?
Jess-Q 12,700 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-03T14:18:34.6033333+00:00

Hi @Chris Lowell,

It has been a while and I am writing to see how things are going with this issue. Have you had a chance to check the replies provided? Any update would be appreciated.

Answer 3

Milestones in Microsoft Project have zero duration, so any duration-based “planned % complete” field will always evaluate to 0% for them. The % Complete calculation is:

Percent Complete = (Actual Duration / Duration) * 100

Because a milestone’s Duration = 0, the formula cannot produce a non‑zero value, so milestones never show progress in duration‑based percent fields.

To “fix” this, use one of these approaches:

Do not rely on planned % complete for milestones
- Treat milestones as binary: 0% until the milestone is achieved, then 100%.
- Update the milestone’s % Complete directly to 100% when it is reached; otherwise leave it at 0%. This is the intended behavior for zero‑duration tasks.
Use work‑based tracking instead of duration‑based for progress reporting
- If progress must be shown numerically over time, track % Work Complete or other work‑based fields on the tasks leading up to the milestone rather than on the milestone itself.
Use non‑milestone tasks if partial progress on the “milestone” must be shown
- Convert the milestone into a normal task with non‑zero duration (for example, 1 day) so that planned % complete can be calculated over that duration.

There is no setting that will make a duration‑based planned % complete field show incremental progress on a true milestone (0‑duration task); this is inherent in how % Complete is defined and calculated.

References: