Managing Baselines

In this chapter

Creating and Maintaining

Baselines

Assigning Baselines to Projects

Comparing Current and Baseline

Schedules

Updating Baselines

A baseline is a complete copy of a project plan that you can compare to the current schedule to evaluate progress.

This chapter describes how to create baselines and assign them to projects. You will also learn how to modify a baseline, update a baseline with new data, and compare a project’s current schedule to its baseline.

You must have at least one project open to access project baselines in the Maintain Baselines or Assign Baselines dialog boxes.

Before you update a schedule for the first time, you should create a baseline plan. The simplest baseline plan is a complete copy or “snapshot” of the original schedule. This snapshot provides a target against which you can track a project’s cost, schedule, and performance.

Each baseline can be assigned a type that categorizes its purpose, for example, initial planning baseline, what-if project plan baseline, or midproject status baseline. Baseline types are defined by the administrator in the Admin Categories dialog box.

You can compare up to three baselines at one time. For example, you might want to create a baseline of the original project schedule, and then create two additional baselines at different stages of the project. You can compare these to the current schedule to see how the project is progressing according to the project plan. You can also create a project baseline to use for summarization.

Designate any existing project, or a copy of the current project, as a baseline. The maximum number of baselines allowed is defined by the administrator in the Admin Preferences dialog box.

Baseline projects do not exist as separate projects that you can access. To copy or modify a baseline project manually, you must first unlink it from its current project. The “restored” baseline project then acts as any other project in the enterprise project structure (EPS). You can also update a baseline project with new or modified project data from the current project. The module only updates the data types you select when you update a baseline.

Create project baselines Open the projects for which you want to create a baseline or view assigned baseline projects. Choose Project, Maintain Baselines. The Maintain Baselines dialog box groups the currently open projects into individual bands, with any existing baseline projects beneath its current project.

Before you convert a project as a baseline, you should copy it; it will no longer be available in the project hierarchy.

To learn more about updating baselines with new or modified data from the current project, refer to “Updating Baselines” on page 280.

If you choose to convert another project as a baseline of the current project, you are prompted to select the project to designate as the baseline from the project hierarchy. You cannot select a project that is currently open, nor can you select a project that already has its own assigned baseline. The module creates a baseline project with the same name and data date as the selected project. (To distinguish the baseline project, the module appends the name with – B1.) This new baseline project is then removed from the project hierarchy and is no longer available as an individual project.

You can only convert one project at a time as a baseline. If multiple projects are open, you must select one project before you can create the baseline project.

After you create a baseline, you can change its name and assign a baseline type to it.

Delete a baseline You can delete a baseline from the project database. Select the project that contains the baseline you want to delete. Choose Project, Maintain Baselines. Select the baseline, then click Delete.

You cannot delete an active baseline. An active baseline is any baseline designated as the primary, secondary, or tertiary baseline in the Assign Baselines dialog box.

Modify a baseline manually As a project progresses and changes occur, you may want to modify a baseline project. You can restore a baseline project, making it available again as a separate project in the project hierarchy. Open the project that contains the baseline you want to restore. Choose Project, Maintain Baselines. Select the baseline you want to restore, then click Restore. Click Yes. The restored project is placed in the same node as the project to which it was linked as a baseline.

Restoring a project to modify a baseline manually is different than updating a baseline. When you update a baseline using the Update Baseline tool, the module updates every instance of every data type you select. If you want some, but not all, changes to the current project for a specific data type (e.g., resource assignments) reflected in the baseline, you should restore the baseline and edit the data. If you want all changes to a data type reflected in the baseline, you should update the baseline.