A client recently asked me how to track the progress of their project within a portfolio but instead of the percentage of tasks completed, they wanted the percentage based on the effort level of each task. So during a live engagement, the below steps is what I came up with on the spot.
My client then told me that I definitely need to post this workaround because they couldn’t find anything like this in the forum. So I’m happy to share how to set this up 
Here goes…
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Create an Effort level single-select field and add it to your project, something like the below:
You can add as many number options as you need. I’m just adding 3 here, to keep things simple. -
Create an Effort incomplete number field with no decimal place and add it to your field library.
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Create an Effort complete number field with no decimal place and add it to your field library.
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In your project, hide both Effort incomplete and Effort complete so your project should looks like this:
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Create a custom rule to essentially map the single-select options of Effort level to the Effort incomplete number field, like this:
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Create a custom rule so that when any task (or subtask) is complete, then set the Effort complete number value to the same as the task’s Effort incomplete number, like below.
Note, the final otherwise if to clear the Effort complete value if the task is marked incomplete.
You could optionally, make a much simpler rule as per below, using the Effort incomplete value as a variable. But this method will not consider the scenario if someone changes the effort level after the task is complete. However, if that is an unlikely scenario, then use the much simple rule below instead of the one above:
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Optionally, create a rule so that if a person changes the number values of either the Effort incomplete or Effort complete, to send them a comment that they should use the Effort level single-select field instead, like this:
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Create a portfolio or add your project to an existing one.
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In your portfolio, create a roll up field for Effort incomplete and another rollup field Effort complete (and call them Effort incomplete rollup and Effort complete rollup respectively) as per below (you may optionally add these to your field library and hide them in your portfolio):
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Create a formula field called % Effort (you may optionally add it to your field library) in your portfolio like this:
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Now as you complete tasks in your projects, the % Effort field will actually show the progress based on the task effort level
You may want to optionally hide the roll up fields so that you only see the % Effort field.
If you are on the Enterprise tier, I recommend you create a Bundle out of the above so you can apply the fields and the relevant rules to all projects that you want to use this in. 
See all of my top tips & tricks on my website .
