Help! :)

[Meg]

I posted this yesterday morning and no one responded - not
sure if I wasn't clear or its just that there is no
answer. Can someone help?

Here's my issue:

I'm a relative novice to MS Projet. I added a Status field
to the Gantt chart and depending on the %complete, it
either says "Future Task", "Complete" or "late". We moved
our launch date out, so I changed the finish dates for a
bunch of tasks to a future date, but the status field
still says "Late". What am I doing wrong.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Meg --

You should not be typing Finish dates for tasks, as doing so sets a Finish
No Earlier Than constraint on the task. If you wanted to move your project
into the future, you should click Project - Project Information and set the
Start Date. Assuming that no actuals have been entered in your project,
Microsoft Project will adjust the schedule of the project accordingly.
Also, I would recommend that you clear all of the Finish No Earlier Than
constraints, along with any Start No Earler Than constraints on tasks for
which you entered a Start date.

The Status field is a calculated field that compares the Start date and
cumulative timephased % complete against the Status Date you set. If you do
not set a Status Date, then Microsoft Project assumes the Current Date
(today) is actually the Status Date. To set a Status Date, click Project -
Project Information and set the Status Date value. To learn more about the
Status Field, hover your mouse pointer over the Status column header, and
then click the "Help on Status" hyperlink that appears in the screentip.
Hope this helps.