Actual Date vs. Baseline Date vs. Actual Date?

[Jaya]

Hi All...
Got some questions, if you could help will be truly appreciated:
1. Just wanted to confirm, when I start planning in Microsoft Project, I
estimate the Start/Finish Date through Start/Finish Field? Is that the way
it’s supposed to be done or should I estimate through the baseline
start/baseline finish field? the Actual Start Date/Actual Finish Date should
show up according the actual date started rite?
2.In Microsoft Project 2003, In the Tools Menu => Customize => Published
Fields, I have added new fields and it now appears in Web Access, but the
Actual Start and Actual Finish is 'NA', why is that? If I start the task
today, whether the estimate date is yesterday...the actual start date is
supposed to be today's date, isn't it?

Thanks all.. .

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jaya --

1. We do not recommend that you manually type either the Start date or the
Finish date for any task, since doing so sets a constraint on the task.
Instead, allow Microsoft Project to schedule your tasks when you estimate
task Durations and set dependencies between your tasks. In addition, if you
have an inflexible Start or Finish date, set a constraint on the task using
Project - Task Information - Advanced and then add a Note to the task to
document the reason for the constraint. After you have completely planned
the project and are confident in the schedule, then save a baseline for the
project using Tools - Tracking - Save Baseline. This will capture your
estimated Start and Finish dates in the Baseline Start and Baseline Finish
fields. As the project progresses, you can use the Tracking Gantt view to
compare the current state of the project against its original baseline
schedule.

2. After adding the fields to the list of Published fields, you must
republish the task assignments using Collaborate - Publish - Republish
Assignments.

Hope this helps.