Show some type of visual indicator when the progress rollup contains interpolated data
I love the ability of the structure plug-in to roll-up numerical fields of children into their parents (thank you!). As I understand it, if some of the children do not have values, the roll-up algorithm estimates values for those children based on the values set in their peers (i.e the value of the unset children is the average value from all of their peers). Essentially, the structure plug-in is making estimates for the children even if users haven't entered any information.
When that happens, it would be nice if the plug-in offers some kind of indicator on the rolled up value to show that the value is not based entirely on facts. For example, the rolled up value could be printed in a red font or have an asterisk next to it. This will alert users that the rolled up value could be erroneous due to lack of information.
Chris
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Chris
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Igor,
Thank you for your input. I would argue that in both cases, i.e. weighted values are used or zero values are used, the Progress roll-up is suspect. Therefore, both cases should have a visual indicator. I think the same indicator would suffice. Thus, we could have a visual 'asterisk' if the Progress is 'incomplete' due to sub-issues not having estimates. If all of the sub-issues have estimates and the Progress is based on complete information, only then would the 'asterisk' be removed.
For the 'asterisk' I would recommend something like the indicator that Excel uses whenever there's a comment on a cell. It's a tiny, red triangle in the upper left corner of the cell.
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Chris, thanks for your suggestion! Currently, only Progress column estimates "weight" of a sub-issue when calculating aggregate progress value. I agree an indicator would make things clearer in this case. (Plus maybe an option to turn off estimation and treat missing weight as 0, removing the sub-issue from the calculation.)
As for the numeric fields, there are no estimation involved. It just sums up the values.
