Hello,
The project I am assigned has started already but some of the areas and their tasks have not been put in yet. not even basline dates. so, i wrote the list of the tasks for those future activities. someone gave me the dates i should enter for them, the dates in next year.

1-now, do i enter them to baseline start and finish, or start and finish columns? or which date type i should use to enter these future, intended dates?

2-also, if i enter them to basline it doesnt calculate the duration automatically, why?

3-how does the actual duration, actual start and actual finish dates fit in here? how about them?

Hi ketanco,

1. You should not be entering dates into Project. Create the tasks and create the links (predecessor/successor) to drive the schedule.
2. You do not need to enter baselines -- once you've finished entering the tasks and making assignments as needed -- you save a baseline through Project Tab > Set Baseline.
3. Actual Start, Actual Finish, Actual and Remaining Duration, and Actual and Remaining Work are used for tracking tasks -- marking progress.

You might benefit from the investment in a good 2-3 day hands on Project class. Project is not a product that is terribly easy to learn on your own and you can develop bad habits (like typing in dates) that will cause you huge amounts of grief later on.

Julie

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.

thanks a lot. in my last question i meant, why do we have the basline columns as editabel columns i mean. if they are updated and filled out automatically when we take a snapshot, why are they editable columns?

Many of the columns in Project are editable -- such as start date, finish date etc. I wouldn't take the fact that they are editable as an invitation, however.