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Creating Project Baselines
At this point in your project development, you should have an initial project plan created. Before you begin to record the actual progress made (actual work performed) on the tasks within your project file, you should save a copy of the original project plan. This copy is called a project baseline. You can use the baseline as a reference point later on as you begin to track the actual work performed on the project. This allows you to compare the actual values, durations, and work associated with the completion of the project’s tasks to your original baseline plan. This data can then be displayed and printed using the different views and reports within Microsoft Project.
To save a baseline copy of your project file, click the “Project” tab in the Ribbon and then click the “Set Baseline” drop-down button in the “Schedule” button group. In the drop-down menu that appears, select the “Set Baseline…” command. In the “Set Baseline” dialog box that appears, select the “Set baseline” option button and then select the name of the baseline copy that you want to create from the adjacent drop-down. You can have up to eleven different baseline copies of your project file that you can create for comparison purposes. Next, in the “For:” section, select the “Entire project” option button. You can then click the “OK” button to save your current project file as the selected baseline.
Once you have a baseline created, you can then compare the saved values in the baseline against the actual work values that you record. For example, you can see the variance between your baseline task durations and your actual task durations when using the “Variance” view of the table within a Gantt Chart view of your project file.
Updating Multiple Tasks in a Project
Once you have saved your baseline copy and work has started on your project, you need to record the progress (actual work) performed on the tasks within the project file. You can update the tasks individually, or you can mark multiple tasks complete as of a selected date. In this lesson, we will examine how to mark multiple tasks completed as of a specified date. You can use this feature when a project has completed 100% of the tasks on schedule as of a set date.
To update multiple tasks in a project as of a selected date, click the “Update Project” button in the “Status” button group on the “Project” tab in the Ribbon. In the “Update Project” dialog box that appears, you can select the “Update work as complete through:” option button, first. Next, select the desired date to mark the work completed through by selecting the desired date from the adjacent calendar drop-down arrow. Next, in the “For:” section, you can select the “Entire project” option to update all tasks in the project as of the selected date. You can then click the “OK” button to update the project tasks.
Note that if you only wish to update multiple tasks as of a selected date, but not necessarily all the tasks, you can also do that by using the “Update Project” dialog box. In this case, first select the tasks to update within the Gantt Chart view of your project file. Remember that you can select multiple, non-adjacent tasks in a list by holding down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard as you click the task names. Once they have been selected, you can open the “Update Project” dialog box again. This time, however, you would choose the “Selected tasks” option button in the “For:” section to update only the selected tasks as of the date selected. This allows you to then update some tasks individually, as needed.
Note that after you update the project’s progress, the individual tasks listed within the Gantt Chart view of your project file will then display a small check mark in the far left “Information” column to mark them as completed. You will also see the task progress indicated by a progress bar that highlights the tasks in the bar chart at the right side of the Gantt Chart view in your project file.
Updating Tasks Individually
You will often need to update the work performed on individual tasks in a project file. Often tasks with a long duration will need to have their completion progress measured and marked individually as the work is completed over time.
When entering progress made on a selected task in a project file, you can either individually mark the “percentage complete” or the “actual work values” completed. One reason that you can do this is that some tasks can be “front-loaded” or “back-loaded,” meaning that the majority of the work is incurred at either the beginning or end of the task’s marked period of duration. In these cases, too, you may need to update the “actual work” progress made on the tasks, which may not correspond directly to the task’s duration, or “percentage complete.”
For example, if your project file contained a “front-loaded” task with a duration of five days, you may complete 60% of the work on day one, with the next four days completing the additional 10% of the work required. In this case, you can individually mark the amount of “actual work” completed on the task as it occurs to accurately record the work performed. Entering a “percentage complete” for this type of task may not accurately reflect the actual work performed, and could possibly cause Microsoft Project to create scheduling errors when calculating the remainder of the task’s duration.
If you choose to update the “percent complete” of a selected task, Microsoft Project will set the actual start date of the task to match the scheduled start date and will then calculate and update the other related task units, such as the actual task duration, the remaining task duration, and the associated costs based on the percentage value that you enter. For example, if you update the progress of a task with a four day duration to indicate that it is 25% complete, Microsoft Project will indicate that there has been one day of actual duration, and three days of remaining duration.
Alternately, you can enter the actual work values recorded for a selected task. This method allows you to enter the actual start date, finish date, work, and duration values for the task. When you update this type of information, Microsoft Project uses the following set of rules to calculate other task values.
Rule 1: When you enter the actual start date of a task, Project moves the scheduled start date to match it.
Rule 2: When you enter the actual finish date of a task, Project moves the scheduled finish date to match it and also set the task to 100% complete.
Rule 3: When you enter the actual work completed on a task, Project calculates the work left to finish, if any.
Rule 4: When you enter the actual duration of a task, Project calculates the duration remaining. If the actual duration matches the scheduled duration, the task is also marked as being 100% complete. In addition to this, if the actual duration is longer than the scheduled duration, Project moves the actual finish date to match the duration entered.
Rescheduling Uncompleted Work
You can also use the “Update Project” function described in lesson 6.2 of this chapter to reschedule all uncompleted project work. Just as when updating work completed within a project file, this can be applied to all tasks within a project or just for selected tasks within a project. We will now examine how to reschedule uncompleted work within a project to a date that you specify.
To do this, click the “Update Project” button in the “Status” button group on the “Project” tab in the Ribbon. In the “Update Project” dialog box that appears, select the “Reschedule uncompleted work to start after:” option button. Then select the desired date after which you want the work to recommence from the adjacent calendar drop-down arrow.
Next, in the “For:” section, you can select the “Entire project” option to update all uncompleted work on all tasks in the project. If you wish to update only selected tasks, but not necessarily all the tasks, you can do that by first selecting the tasks to reschedule within the Gantt Chart view of your project file. Remember that you can select multiple, non-adjacent tasks in a list by holding down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard as you click the task names. You would choose the “Selected tasks” option button in the “For:” section to reschedule only the selected tasks.
After making your choice of tasks to reschedule within the project, click the “OK” button to reschedule the select project tasks to start after the date you specify.
To update an individual task within a project file, first select the task whose progress you wish to update within your project file. Next, click the “Mark on Track” drop-down button in the “Schedule” button group on the “Task” tab in the Ribbon. From the drop-down menu that appears, select the “Update Tasks” command to open the “Update Tasks” dialog box. In this dialog box you can enter the actual values that you wish to record. If you simply wish to enter the percent complete, you can enter that into the “% Complete:” field and then click the “OK” button to let Project calculate the other values. Otherwise, you can enter the actual work values that you want to record into the fields available. You can enter the actual duration, remaining duration, actual start date, or actual finish date, as needed. You can then click the “OK” button to save the changes. When updating the actual values, Project will then update the corresponding values for the task, as needed, based on the rules that we just examined in this lesson.
