Difference between Baseline Start/Finish and Start/Finish

This post will go over the Start and Finish Dates that can be set in the Microsoft Project application. The Baseline Start/Finish and the Actual Start/Finish dates are different. See the note below that clarifies the difference and what each Start and Finish dates are and how to view in the Microsoft Project application.

1.  After you completely plan your project with complete task, resource, and assignment information, the Start and Finish fields contain the original "planned" dates for every task in your project.  At this point, you should click Tools > Tracking > Set Baseline to save a baseline for your project. When you save a baseline, Microsoft Project 2007 captures the current Duration, Start date, Finish date, Work, and Cost for every task in the project in a corresponding set of Baseline fields.  The software also captures the Work and Cost information for every resource, and captures the time phased Work and Cost information you can see in either the Task Usage or Resource Usage view.  At this point, the Baseline Start and Baseline Finish fields contain the original "planned" Start and Finish dates.

2.  As you begin entering actual progress in your Microsoft Project 2007 plan, such as entering Actual Start dates and/or Actual Finish dates, your schedule will undoubtedly change.  This means that Start and Finish dates would change, possibly earlier, but most likely later than what you originally planned.  During the execution stage of your project, the Start and Finish fields no longer contain the original "planned" Start and Finish dates; instead, they contain the "current dates" for every task in the project.  If your dates have shifted earlier or later, how would you ever know?

3.  To know if you have variance in your project, such as if your Start and Finish dates have slipped, you can examine the Tracking Gantt view.  If you see blue Gantt bars (non-Critical tasks) or red Gantt bars (Critical tasks) that have slipped to the right of their accompanying gray bars (Baseline schedule), this means that their task Start date, Finish date, and/or Duration has slipped, compared against their original Baseline Start date, Baseline Finish date, and/or Baseline Duration.  While in the Tracking Gantt view, you can click View > Table > Cost to apply the Cost table and analyze Cost variance (shown in the Variance column).  A positive number in the Variance column indicates you are going over budget on Cost.  You can click View > Table > Work and analyze Work variance (shown in the Variance column).  Again, a positive number in the Variance column indicates you are going over budget on Work.  You can also click View > Table > Variance and analyze Start and Finish date variance (shown in the Start Variance and Finish Variance columns).  Once again, a positive number in either of these two columns indicates that your dates are late.

Hope this helps.

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Dale A. Howard [MVP]

VP of Educational Services

msProjectExperts

http://www.msprojectexperts.com

http://www.projectserverexperts.com

"We write the books on Project Server"

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Microsoft Project with Gantt Chart Tracking view. By default under "View" tab it is Gantt Chart view. 

     

Select the Tracking Gantt view to see the Gantt bars, blue, grey, red