'Unique names' quality metric
Use this metric to check the proportion of tasks and milestones with names that are unique - ie the proportion of tasks that do not share a name with one or more other tasks in the scope of the quality check. Tasks with names that are not unique can indicate errors in scheduling.
This metric disregards trailing spaces and other special formatting characters, and capitalisation, when examining task names. This change means that, for example, "TASK 1" and "task 1
" are deemed to be the same.
You can specify whether you want the path name of tasks to be taken into account when checking for uniqueness.
With the pass and fail boundaries set to 100.00%, this metric meets the requirements of CIOB stress test 13 (Unique identifiers).
Example of tasks with non-unique names
In the following illustration, Task 1 and TASK 1 share the same name - despite the difference in capitalisation. Both tasks would fail this metric:
You can change the impact that this metric has on the weighted total result of a quality check by entering a factor by which the quality metric should be multiplied in the Weighting field. For the weighting to have any effect, a quality check must have more than one quality metric.
Pass and fail criteria
| Pass or fail? | Criteria |
|---|---|
| Pass |
A project passes this metric if the percentage of tasks with unique names is greater than or equal to the pass boundary percentage.
For example, if the pass boundary was set to 100.00%, a project would pass this metric if 100.00% of tasks had unique names. |
| Fail |
A project fails this metric if the percentage of tasks with unique names is less than the fail boundary percentage.
For example, if the fail boundary was set to 100.00%, a project would fail this metric if less than 100.00% of tasks had unique names. |
| Neither pass nor fail | If the percentage of tasks with unique names falls between the pass and fail boundary percentages, the result is neither a pass nor a fail, but somewhere in between. |
Suggested settings to meet the requirements of CIOB stress test 13 (Unique identifiers)
- Pass boundary: 100.00%. A project will pass this metric if all tasks have unique names.
- Fail boundary: 100.00%. A project will fail this metric if any tasks have names that are not unique.
The following table shows whether some example projects would pass or fail this metric using these settings:
| Percentage of tasks with unique names | Pass or fail? |
|---|---|
| 0.00% | Fail |
| 50.00% | Fail |
| 99.99% | Fail |
| 100.00% | Pass |
Use the Ignore path name check box to specify whether you want the path name of tasks to be taken into account when checking for uniqueness:
- With the check box cleared, the path name of tasks is included when checking for uniqueness, so "Programme\Plot 1\Groundworks" would be considered to be different to "Programme\Plot 2\Groundworks".
- With the check box selected, the path name of tasks is disregarded when checking for uniqueness, so "Programme\Plot 1\Groundworks" would be considered to be identical to "Programme\Plot 2\Groundworks".
Does the metric force a project to be rescheduled?
No.
Suggested actions if a project fails this metric
If a project fails this metric, select the metric in the Quality Check Results dialog and click Show Failing Tasks to view the tasks that have failed the metric.
Edit the names of any failing tasks, ensuring that they are unique.