in your answer to question 2, when you say "once you finish entering the tasks" do you mean entering the tasks by only giving them durations and relations and looking at start and finish columns? and then you save that instant, as if taking a snapshot, to set a baseline correct? if correct, then why do they have baseline start and finish columns, and even 10 sets of them? if baseline is set by just taking a snapshot, then why do we have those columns?

also by setting basline, you set it for today, or any day you want, and call it basline as of ... date? because on the set baseline as you described, there is not somewhere where you can enter dates. how do you update the baseline date?



as i said i already entered dates to the basline start and finish dates. if i leave them as it is, can they also serve as my baseline anyway? i wont repeat this practice in the future however for just this one, can i just leave the dates i manually entered into baseline start and finish columns?

Ketanco wrote:
in your answer to question 2, when you say "once you finish entering the tasks" do you mean entering the tasks by only giving them durations and relations and looking at start and finish columns?
Yes and assigning resources if appropriate.

Ketanco wrote:
and then you save that instant, as if taking a snapshot, to set a baseline correct?
Yes. When you save a baseline, data in fields gets copied into Baseline fields. Start is copied to Baseline Start, Finish to Baseline Finish, Work (if you've assigned resources) into Baseline Work, Duration into Baseline Duration, and Cost into Baseline cost.
Those fields are not changed unless you save over the original baseline.

Ketanco wrote:
if correct, then why do they have baseline start and finish columns, and even 10 sets of them? if baseline is set by just taking a snapshot, then why do we have those columns?
The purpose of baselines is for comparison. Once you've saved a baseline and started tracking progress, Project automatically calculates the difference between your baseline data and the actual data. If you apply the Variance table you may see the variance calculations.

There are multiple baselines to allow users to take baselines throughout the project lifespan and view comparisons as the project progresses.