setting up actual start date in project 2003

[Problem setting actual start dates]

I have a project where I have start and finish dates defined (to say,
5/15/2006 and 5/16/2006). Now I want to define actual start date to say,
6/14/2006). When I go to the task and specify an Actual Start date of
6/14/2006, it also changes the Start date to 6/14/2006 (and the Finish date
to 6/15/2006). this is driving me nuts.....

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

When a task has actiual dates,, you will also find these in Start and
Finish.
That is because Start and Finish are the "State of the Art" fields, used to
calculate the rest of the schedule from.
If you want to preserve the originally planned dates for posterity you have
to save them as a baseline.
The tracking Gantt and the Variance table allow comparison pof current plan
with baseline.
HTH

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
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[Problem setting actual start dates]

saving as a baseline did not help. Also, I have one more project (and project
plan) where this does not happen. When I changed the actual start date, the
values in the Start and Finish were unchanged

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

If you can show me a task where start is not equal to actual start, with
calculation (Tools, Options, Calculation) set to Automatic, I'll show you a
corrupted file (but I've never ever seen this)

What do you mean it didn't help? Of course it doesn't change the behaviour
but the baseline can serve as a reference. But when there is a date in
Actual start, Start will be equal to that.
It simply MUST be or the remainder of the plan is phony.

Interesting as the original plan may be, reality is generally even more
interesting.

HTH

 

[John]

Hi,

If you can show me a task where start is not equal to actual start, with
calculation (Tools, Options, Calculation) set to Automatic, I'll show you a
corrupted file (but I've never ever seen this)

What do you mean it didn't help? Of course it doesn't change the behaviour
but the baseline can serve as a reference. But when there is a date in
Actual start, Start will be equal to that.
It simply MUST be or the remainder of the plan is phony.

Interesting as the original plan may be, reality is generally even more
interesting.

HTH

Jan,
I got a bang out of your closing comment.

John

 

[Problem setting actual start dates]

Jan

Thanks for the express responses. I found the problem. Project implicitly
links Start date and Actual Start date. Date changes even when % complete is
specified is only relative to Start date. So, to achieve what I wanted, I
used the Baseline Start and Finish date and gave a Estimated Start and Finish
title to those columns.

Whew !!! Reality, in this case, was "pretty" interesting !!!

Thanks again

Giri

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

You're welcome, Giri