I greatly appreciate the response.  I see your industry is Petro Chem.  I have worked on those types of projects and have worked on turn-arounds.  I have also done earned value work.  In this case, we are talking about a large commercial project.  In this type of project there is a heavy mix of time based durations.  For example, design activities technically could be physical % but the hassle is not worth the work on most of these actitivies.  It creates twice as many ways for PMs to be wrong.  Or I could calc the dur % and fill it in the physical % columns.  I think it comes down to mathmatically how many activities you can update in the time you have and how much input you get from your team on those activities.  Oil and Refinery work is more of a buttoned down systematic approach making that more possible.  Commercial construction is a little more wild with more variables.  There is more churn, faster churn making physical % complete more trouble than its worth.  I think most PMs would work backwards to fill in the phs % complete and remaining duration.  If they don't don't have to match it - you need justification or proof in 2 ways not just one.  I understand why they want this done.  In theory, its ok, in practice its not.  That is just one schedulers opinion - in the end it comes down to how much time you have, and that always seems to be a tight. I used earned value on convernment jobs where the durations were long, most commercial specs down allow activiities over 15 days which makes phys % complete less valuable also.