Step 3: How to add summary tasks

What is a summary task

A summary task is an overarching task that brings together a group of linked subtasks and displays their combined start dates, end dates and percentage completes. Summary tasks automatically calculate:

• Their own start and end dates, using the earliest start and latest end date of the subtasks underneath.
• The current percentage complete using the overall percentage complete of all underlying subtasks.

How to add a summary task

Click on the dropdown arrow next to ‘Add Milestone’ in the top bar and select ‘Add’ > ‘Summary’. 

Add the details of the summary task and click ‘OK’. Note: the start and end date of your summary task should take into account the start and end dates of subtasks you will be adding underneath. But don't worry, these dates can be updated at a later point.

Two tasks will then be created in your plan:

• The first task will become the overarching summary task and the Start Date, End Date, and Percentage Complete fields within this will be locked as these will be updated by any underlying subtasks. 
• The second task will be a duplicate of the summary task and should be used to create the first subtask in the group (this will all be editable). Note: if a summary task is being added to the plan after the subtasks have already been created, this duplicate task can either be deleted or repurposed.

The overarching summary task will display a fixed duration based on the start date of the first subtask and the end date of the final subtask in the group. The percentage complete information is calculated based on all subtask percentage completes.

Note: if you want to add your new summary task into an existing list of tasks, you can use the indent/outdent option in the Scheduling Mode to build your group.

How to update a summary task

There are 2 ways to update the start and end dates of a summary task:

1. Turn on Auto-Scheduling for your plan. When auto-scheduling is enabled, the summary task will automatically update based on the earliest and latest dates of all the subtasks.
2. Manually auto-schedule the summary task, as and when needed to update the dates.

Note: the summary task percentage complete will automatically update as the subtasks are updated. 

See Step 2: How to set up auto-scheduling for more information.

How does a summary task look?

If all of the subtask date ranges are within the summary task's start and end date, the summary task will show on the Gantt as a thin green bar with a matching grey bar.

If any of the subtask date ranges are outside of the summary task's start and end date, the summary task line will show as a thin red bar exceeding the length of the grey bar, indicating a scheduling conflict. 

The summary task start and end dates can be updated to return the bar to green. See guidance above on how to update a summary task.

If auto-scheduling is on, the summary task will look like a normal task (it won't show as 2 thin bars) and will automatically update to reflect the changing start and end dates in the linked subtasks underneath.