for an activity with a start date in the past, when i update the status date of the project, why doesnt it increase the actual duration? because the days has progressed (i am telling this to the program by updating the status date right?) but the activity still did not finish. then i tried writing the actual start date as it was saying N/A and I just made it same date as the activity's scheduled start date. but it didnt affect it eaither.



does actual duration mean actual duration to date? or total actual duration including to date and future? is it a calculated or entered column?

by the way, where can i say if a column is a calculated or or entered column or not and if calculated the calculation formula?

Updating the Status date in Project Information does nothing by itself, nor in my opinion, do you want it to.

Show the Tracking table. Apply an actual start date if the task has started. If the task is complete, apply an actual finish date. If the task has been started but not complete, enter actual duration. Look at remaining duration and update it if it does not match the estimated time to complete from your resources.

To get information about fields - hover over the column heading. In Project 2010 -- press F1, in Project 2007 or earlier, click the hyperlink to the help topic.

ok for instance, although i made the status date to today, th eproject still shows the past start date for an activity. whouldnt it at least pull these past start dates to today? i mean it is impossible for them to start in the past now as i told the project that the status date is today. so how come it is keeping a past date for the start date column?

i mean i would like ms project to calculate the dates as much as possible. but are you saying i enter actual dates? so for this one, it hasnt started, and the date is today, so do i enter today for actual start date? which would not be accurate either...

After you update all tasks which are in progress with the Actual Start date etc -- you should move any incomplete work forward to the status date through Tools > Tracking Update Project > Reschedule Uncompleted work to start after (Project 2007).

and how about uncompleted work started in the past and it was supposed to be finished in the past but didnt finish? in primavera when i updated the dateline, it automatically used to add to the duration and shift the task to the right, making it longer duration. Here how is that done?

That is precisely what Tools > Tracking Update Project > Reschedule Uncompleted work to start after command does.