Microsoft Project - Baseline Date Question

Question

I have a project where I am responsible for reviewing and approving monthly updates of the CPM schedule from the contractor. We observed that there are activities that have not started or activities that have started but are not completed. In both cases the completion dates are still in the past and are not being pushed out even though the data date is current. Further investigation determined that the contractor is resetting the baseline date with each update. I cannot find an option to reset the baseline date back to 1/6/25 where it should be. Is there a way to reset the baseline date back to where it should be?

Answer 1

Neil --

Your contractor is hoaxing you by continually resetting the baseline and by leaving incomplete work scheduled in the past. I would strongly encourage you to tell you contractor to begin doing the following:

1. Leave in place the current Baseline, and NEVER again rebaseline the entire project. As John indicated in his reply, I suspect that the origal baseline is probably gone. Instead, as the project moves forward, continue working with the current baseline for the project.
2. Reschedule all incomplete work from the past to the current reporting period (to the right of the Status date). There should NEVER be incomplete work in the past, as this creates an incorrect schedule for the project.
3. After setting the Status Date each week, enter task progress, and then reschedule incomplete work from the past into the current reporting period. This should be done EVERY WEEK, without exception.

Also, to see if your contractor is actually doing step #3 above, open the project and apply the Late Tasks filter. That will quickly identify tasks that have incomplete work in the past. If your contractor is not willing to do the above, you may need to look for a new scheduler for your project, as the project he/she created is not trustworthy.

Frankly, the mistakes your contractor is making are pretty common mistakes, but these mistakes will ultimately mislead you on the true schedule of the project. So, you need to enforce some new rules for your own benefit.

OK, I have ranted enough. Time to get down from my soapbox and get back to work! Hope this helps.

Answer 2

NeilMonkman888

A screenshot would help a lot.

I am guessing that the contractor has only the one file which he keeps "updating" and over-writing and saving. So you may not have the very first version which would be the baseline baseline., or you may have that file but the current version does not have that original baseline data in it.

Baseline fields are editable, so you could just type in all of the original baseline starts, finishes and duration.

Alternatively, get the current file, strip off all of the progress (select all and use the 0% button on the task ribbon), and that will be your baseline. Baseline that and re-input the progress.

If the program has planned/scheduled finish dates in the past then it is wrong, and those tasks need their remaining duration increased or the remaining incomplete parts moved to the status date (move button on the task ribbon).

A far better practice is to save each of the incremental updates so that you have the whole history of the program development, not just that old baseline and a current file.

Any help?

Answer 3

NeilMonkman888,

Unfortunately, no. The only way you can get the baseline back to where it should be is if you saved copies of each update. Then you can go back to the update on Jan 6 to get the original baseline dates.

Sorry,

John