Project 2007: Actual Finish Date & Finish

[scparker]

Hello,

I am updating a lot of project files within the company and one aspect
that needs updating is the Actual Finish Date. The Project has a
planned Start Date and a planned Finish Date. These must remain as
they are. However, when I add the Actual Finish Date to the project,
it amends the Finish Column as well. I do not want it to do this.

Why does it do this and how may I be able to stop it from doing this?

Sincerely,


Stephen

 

[Dominic]

Stephen,



It sounds like you need to "Baseline" your schedule - the start and finish
dates displayed in the "Entry" table with the Gantt chart view display the
dates which are either scheduled to occur or have occurred, hence when you
update the Actual Finish the finish date reflects the same value. Having a
baseline of your schedule will allow you to compare actuals against planned
for duration, start, finish, work and cost values for every task, milestone
and summary task in your schedule.


--
Dominic Moss

Projectability - Helping People achieve more with Microsoft Project

www.projectability.co.uk

 

[JulieS]

Hello Stephen,

You need to save a baseline for your project before updating the
actual data (actual start, actual finish, actual duration, actual
work, actual cost). Saving a baseline will copy the current start,
finish, duration, work, and cost into Baseline start, Baseline
Finish, Baseline Duration, Baseline Work, and Baseline cost fields.
Those baseline values are not altered by Project when you track.
There are Variance fields (Start Variance, Finish Variance, etc)
that will show the difference between Baseline data and actual data.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

"scparker" wrote in message
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[Steve]

The Finish Date is a calculated field that takes the project start date,
task durations and any constraints or dependencies into account. When you
update the tasks with the dates actually worked, it recalculates the Finish
date.

In order to compare the planned Finish Date with the actual Finish Date,
which is what I think you are after, you have to create a baseline at the
start of the project, and use variance to track it.

See this article for an overview...
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HP010514501033.aspx

HTH

 

[scparker]

Thanks Dominic & JulieS for that. It has been some time since I used
Project and was trying to use the Start as the Baseline Start and the
Actual Start as Start. Baselining has sorted it perfectly. Thanks
again.

Sincerely,


Stephen

 

[JulieS]

You're welcome Stephen. Glad to have helped and thanks for the
feedback.

Julie
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