actual end date should not change planned end date

[Duc900rider]

I need the program to leave the dates alone, I want to see my planned VS
actual completion dates. If I enter an actual completion date it changes my
orginal planned date. It doesn't make any sense, why even bother to have an
actual completion column if it is just going to change the other column
information. This makes the program useless. I hope you start sending patches
out to fix these bugs.

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[Jan De Messemaeker]

And I hope they don't react to this kind of posts.
Sorry I want my plan to be based on facts not dreams.
When an actual date is diffrerent the plan MUST be recalculated if not the
program is useless: its purpose is to CALCULATE my plan.
Hope this helps.

--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm

I need the program to leave the dates alone, I want to see my planned VS
actual completion dates. If I enter an actual completion date it changes my
orginal planned date. It doesn't make any sense, why even bother to have an
actual completion column if it is just going to change the other column
information. This makes the program useless. I hope you start sending patches
out to fix these bugs.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=265c5254-a5
eb-474f-b053-af1616fd8e68&dg=microsoft.public.project

 

[John]

I need the program to leave the dates alone, I want to see my planned VS
actual completion dates. If I enter an actual completion date it changes my
orginal planned date. It doesn't make any sense, why even bother to have an
actual completion column if it is just going to change the other column
information. This makes the program useless. I hope you start sending patches
out to fix these bugs.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=265c5254-a5eb
-474f-b053-af1616fd8e68&dg=microsoft.public.project

Duc900rider,
Let me expand a bit on what Jan wrote. Project has several date fields.
The Start and Finish fields are normally referred to as the scheduled
dates. The scheduled dates, durations and links determine the overall
project plan. There are also several baseline fields. When a baseline is
set, (Tools/Tracking/Save Baseline), the schedule dates, along with
other project data, are captured into separate fields for the explicit
purpose of later comparison to actual values. Finally there are Actual
Start and Actual Finish fields. These represent what actually happens.
These fields are populated either manually by the user or automatically
by Project when progress starts and finishes on each task.

Let's say you have a task that is scheduled to start on 9/1/06 and run
for 10 days. That task is then linked to other tasks that follow. Now
let's say that for whatever reason, the task that was scheduled to start
on 9/1/06 didn't start until 9/6/06. If the schedule start date (Start
field) is not updated to agree with the actual start then the schedule
no longer represents what is truly happening the the whole logic of the
plan is invalid.

Hopefully this provides a better understanding of Project's date fields.
By now you should understand that what you really want to see is your
current schedule versus the baseline. Two fields that show that
information directly is the Start Variance and Finish Variance fields.
There are also several earned valued fields that compare plan to actual
in terms of money.

Here's a suggestion. Go to our MVP website at:
http://project.mvps.org/links.htm
and take a look at fellow MVP, Mike Glen's series on Project lessons and
techniques. I think that will put things in better perspective for you.

John
Project MVP