

The formula shown when you pause over the header of the %-complete column is: Praveen, if a 10 day task started 5 days ago it is 50% complete. Instead, tasks need to be updated with Actual Start, Mark on Track, (Actual Duration and Move incomplete part to the Status date), and Remaining Duration or (Remaining Work and an adjustment to the Assigned Units).įor updating, it’s useful to show the Gantt Chart view and the View > Details with the dropdown selecting the view, Resource Usage with Remaining Duration and the Assignment Units columns inserted. Updating with %-complete may be the most common mistake in updating tasks. With %-complete updating, there is no effect on the Finish date of the task or the Start and Finish dates of it’s successors. Instead, there should be no progress in the future and all the incomplete part of a task needs to shift forward after the Status date. Baseline dates store the original schedule, Start/Finish dates store the current schedule, and Actual dates are used to track the ongoing and finished tasks.ĭid you know MSP has nine other set of Baseline, Planned, and Actual dates? Have you used them? Which set of dates to you work with most often? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.Īt the end of your article in Best Practices you finish with (… or use percentage finish option.) However, inputting %-complete causes a progress line on a task in the graph showing part of the task incomplete before the Status date or shpwing progress has been accomplished after the Status date. You can use a combination of entering Actual dates directly in the Gantt chart view or use percentage finish option.Take care of task types while creating and tracking project tasks.This way you will be able to track the project progress against the original schedule. Always use set Baseline dates after creating the initial schedule.Avoid assigning resources to summary tasks.This way MSP will automatically calculate Start and Finish dates of successors.

You can do this for all your tasks except for the first one. Always define a predecessor task when entering a new task.My recommended best practices for dealing with dates in MSP are listed below: They can be used to track the project progress. Create a new project in MSP and insert four columns in the Gantt chart view:īaseline dates store the original set of planned dates.
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Let us do a third exercise, which I hope will shed some light on how to use Baseline dates.ġ. These are called Baseline dates, and they help in tracking and in the reporting of a project. MSP has a third set of dates, which are used to store the original plan. What if we wanted to see the original plan date and wanted to track a project’s actual progress against it? We use Baseline dates. It maintains the schedule by automatically changing them if the dates of a Predecessor task changes. MSP treats ‘Start’ and ‘Finish’ dates as pertaining to the current schedule. MSP recognizes this and automatically changes the planned Start date of the second task. The second task is dependent on the first, so it can start only after the first task is finished.
