Enterprise Custom Field

[Joe]

Hello,

Is it possible to populate a custom field for a specific task based on
the name of the task? Something like, IIF([NAME]="Go Live",[Finish])
for a custom date field? If not, would it be possible to set a flag
for that task only so that if it were "yes", I could populate a Go
Live date field with the finish date for that task only? My problem
is that our executives want to see whether or not the "Go Live" date
for our IS projects are on track versus just the overall finish date
of the project on PWA. Typically, there can be a month or so of
post-implementation support and/or other project close out tasks after
a system is pushed into production, so just looking at the overall
finish date doesn't necessarily tell you whether or not or how much
the go-live date is slipping. To do that, I'd like to be able to
display the baseline go-live date versus the go-live date as it stands
today and/or perhaps create a graphical indicator to show that the
go-live date has slipped. I'm just not that good with MSP 2003
enterprise yet.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Joe

 

[Jonathan Yong]

It can be done. You create a custom task field and populate it with a
formula that compare the baseline finish date to the current finish date.

 

[Ed Hanna]

Joe,

You don't need custom fields or formulas. Out-of-the-box fields that will
satisfy your reporting need (e.g. Duration Variance, Start Variance, and
Finish Variance) are already being calculated. For example, "Finish
Variance" provides the comparison of current finish date with baseline
finish date.

The Tracking Gantt would be a good place to visually track the relationship
between the baseline schedule and the current schedule (see View/Tracking
Gantt). Assuming "Go Live" is a milestone task, you can filter your
Tracking Gantt view (Project/Filtered for../Milestones) and produce a
decluttered view that should be meaningful to management.

Be sure that your schedule includes enough other milestone tasks (e.g. start
of phases, end of phases, deliverables, program reviews, etc.) to make the
milestone view interesting.

Ed