Project Start Date

[Sumit]

Hi,

MSP > Project > Project Information.
Are Start Date and Finish Date in Project Information screen points to
Project start Date and project finish date?
If not, what is the significance of these dates and how are they derived
(Scheduled dates or transaction dates of tasks?)

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello Sumit.
Yes, Start Date and Finish Date in Project Information screen points to
Project start Date and project finish date!
In this dialog, you can enter a date : start or finish, and the software
will calculate the other, according to the option Schedule From...

Hope this helps,

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Ben Wiegers]

Sumit,

the Project Start date defines when the project can start (therefore the
calculation within Project starts at that date, task can not start earlier).
This date is used when you select Schedule from: Project Start date.
All tasks will be scheduled "as soon as possible".
The Project Finish date is used when you select Schedule from: Project
Finish date.
That means that all tasks will be scheduled "as late as possible", thus
havin no slack at all and any delay will cause your project to fail horribly.

So, you have to enter either the Project Start or the Project Finish,
depending on your choice of scheduling.

Regards,

Ben Wiegers
Twice It Training

 

[Steve House]

One of those dates is set by the PM, usually the project start date. Then
MS Project calculates the other date based on task durations, links, and
resources.

 

[Sumit]

Thank you all for info

But How these dates gets defaulted.

Support I am using MSP integration with Oracle Projects and when i download
a project with task 1
Schedule start date : 01-June-2009
Schedule end date : 30-June-2009
Txn start date : 28-May-2009
Txn end date : 02-July-2009

the Project start Date gets defaulted to 28-May-2009
and Project End date : 02-July-2009

Is there any link between these dates and the way projects dates are derived?

Appreciate your Help!!

~Sumit

 

[Rob Schneider]

Questions:

: What is Oracle Projects doing to the MPP file?
: what does "Txn" mean?

Without Oracle involved, when you create a new MPP file Project will
default the Project Start date to be the current date. As other said,
the Project finish date is computed and if there are no tasks to compute
it you will notice that on creation the date is grayed out.

Somebody or some thing is setting these dates. I would check "upstream"
and see who/what is creating the file. What role does "Oracle Projects"
have in this?

(and seems to me that there should be no finish dates set. let Project
compute the finish dates).