Hi Brad,

If you read my comment on the post by  Yaser A. Al-Bustanji, you should already understand what is planned date. No offense to Yaser but he had a very minimal understanding of how P6 works and what is planned dates is all about.
 

Like what I have mentioned, Planned date is different from Baseline date. Planned date is the original date that has been calculated by the software based on logic and or constrained during development of the schedule. It will the result after running the schedule calculation (F9) before and after the update of the current live schedule. Depending on the settings selected the behaviour of Planned date when calculated for non-started activities. Planned date is static and can be altered or modify by the user. Planned date can be used for calculating variance if no baseline assigned for current project.

Baseline is a copy of the current project maintained and assigned to the current project. Baseline cannot be altered or modify compared to Planned date unless baseline is removed and restored to modify.

Planned date is very useful when running the what if scenario on history of original date and its movement such as schedule planned analysis and forensic scheduling. It also involves using the feature of apply actual or update progress.

If you only wanted to compare the update schedule on weekly variance (i.e. weekly update and made copy of current for previous week comparison) then you have to change the settings of Earned Value using current date and At completion because you are comparing current date and not planned date.

Hi Rodel

I am not sure what you mean by “Baseline date is different from project planned date” as it is my understanding that when a user displays a baseline date it will reflect the planned date if the the baseline is set as current project.  I also understand that current start/finish dates are different from planned start/finish dates, as this is precisely what I take issue with.

I respectfully disagree with your statement “Planned Date is a very useful date in Primavera for current live project that you are updating”. In my opinion there should be no reason that a user wanting to compare current dates with dates from a previous update should not simply be able to take a baseline and assign it.

I can see you have commented on the following post by  Yaser A. Al-Bustanji

http://www.planningplanet.com/blog/understanding-planned-dates-oracle-primavera-p6

which includes these statements:

• “In my experience, the stored data in the planned date fields is of no importance at least in the construction industry. This is also the case in other industries if we know that the Planned dates may hold a completely irrelevant data”
• “This leads to a situation in which the Planned dates store irrelevant and misrepresented information that should never be displayed or used for any purpose”
• “The Planned dates of the baselines assigned to the current schedule are used to display the relative baselines bars. This option applied by default as the Earned Value Calculation tab under Admin, Admin Preferences tab is set to “Budgeted values with planned dates”. This is a very confusing option especially when a progressed schedule is being used as baseline because the baseline bar are displaying irrelevant data (Planned dates). It is recommended that the user should use the "At Completion values with current dates" or “Budgeted values with current dates” under “Earned Value Calculation” tab under Admin, Admin Preferences tab as per figure (17) to display the correct baselines bars.”
• “The data stored in the Planned date fields is of no importance. It is not help in any way in the schedule analysis and/or reporting purposes as they may hold irrelevant data.”
• “The process of updating schedule will affects the Planned dates fields; if the user calculates the schedule and then set the actuals, this will lead to completely irrelevant data being stored in the Planned dates fields.”

My requirement is very simple - I want to compare the start/finish dates between two updates provided as .xers from the client. Fortunately, the solution also appears to be quite simple, as per the above recommendation: change the default earned value calculation setting in admin preferences, i.e. do not use Budgeted values with planned dates.

Regards

Brad

I realise this is an old thread, but the existence of planned dates has me perplexed for many years.

When a baseline is assigned to a programme, the baseline start/finish fields display the planned start/planned finish from the baseline programme which may be different to the start/finish dates in the baseline programme. Right?

I frequently overwrite the planned start/finish with start/finish using a global change,  but when I need to explain this issue and procedure to clients or employers they generally find it unbelievable.

Why on earth was this not resolved years ago?

 

 

Hi,

I am a beginner in P6, Can somebody please help me for a problem that, I have imported XER file and i want to change BL Finish date for the whole project, I have reduced the durations for each activity and BL Start Finish Dates but BL Finish date for the entire project remains the same, why is that happening ? Is there any constraint I am facing ?

Please help me

Armando,

I believe that you mixed up the "Planned Dates" of your Baseline and your Current Schedules. I suggest that you treat the schedules (baseline vs. current) separately. Planned Dates for Baseline (early and late) are different from Planned Dates (early and late) of your working or current schedule (assuming that you had already made updates), so the remaining values might be different.

David,

What do you mean? A Baseline Plan that has actuals? And you schedule the remaining works as your Current?

I believe that "auto compute actuals" works only for Baselines (which are not really actuals but planned actuals). So why use it in your Current or working schedule?

cheers

p.s. Ravi, I never said that "Planned Dates" are not required in P6. (maybe before when I was still trying to learn) but as I go mature (i hope i did), I believe it is.

Paul and Anoon, both have said it correctly and certainly it is not at all required in P6. It will be helpful, only if u need to update few selected activities.

It will be useful only if u can provide planned start and planned finish dates for say, a group of activities and then go to Tools --> Update Progress and their u have an option wherein u can update only selected activities.

Or otherwise Planned dates are not at all required in P6.

Similarly, as asked in previous thread, we dont require Anticipated Start and Anticipated Finsih dates. We can have anticipated bars only in WBS view and not in Activity chart. If v are not certain of few WBS Elements, then we can have anticipated dates in WBS form but cannot be displayed in activity chart. So, whats d fun of having these type of dates??

Andrew,

I agree, Baseline Schedules are supposed to be frozen (with regards to dates). When I say Current Schedule - this is supposed to be your working schedule which is dynamic, has early and late dates, and yes (what I believe) has Planned Dates (which is supposed to be your forecast dates). I’m only talking for myself by the way, I’m not really sure if it is how the program was designed for (anyway I believe that you solicit my opinion).

Apply Actuals or Update Progress Automatically (or using progress spotlight) - to be honest, I only use it in my Baseline Schedule (to reflect the forecast progress as originally planned at a certain time). I never use it in the Current Schedule. Why? in my experience, I never encountered a schedule that really happened as planned.

So in principle, the point of "Planned Dates" is self explanatory (why you need a Plan?). But how it functions in the program (software) is I guess will depend on the user.

cheers

On the contrary, i don’t really think that "Planned Dates" is a disaster. I believe this separates the Baseline and the Current Schedules. So if it happens that you don’t understand what’s the difference between a Baseline and a Current Schedule, i believe there is a Paul Harris that is willing to teach.

Hi Paul,

MY QUEST FOR THE EARLY AND LATE CURVES IN THE ACTIVITY USAGE PROFILE...

I exported to excel my working programme planned dates and my baseline late dates. Then I replaced my working programme planned dates with the baseline late dates. After that, I imported my working programme back.

When I checked my working programme activity usage profile, I was surprised because the budgeted and baseline curves becomes equal.

I was really expecting that the budgeted curve would become my baseline late curve.

It appeared to me that the baseline in the activity usage profile is actually a late curve and not early.

Any help will be highly appreciated...

Thanks,

Arman

I agree the “Planned Dates” are a disaster.

Most people do not even know that these dates even exist net alone where how they are calculated or how they are used or when! The Primavera documentation does not give a clear indication of what they do or how they calculate.

They are very complex but basically:
1. When an activity is complete or in progress they are set to equal to the last update, say similar to the last periods status.
2. When an activity is unstarted they are set to the early start and early finish. There is a whole page of documentation in my book on how they calculate but it is all a bit academic as any normal scheduler would never want to display them or any data that is associated with them.

I have found the Planned Dates are used in:

1. Progress Spotlight, so one does not get the expected result as one would with P3, SureTrak or MPS with update progress. You will find that Actual dates are changed for you to the Planned Dates without telling you! To overcome this problem you may run a Global Change to set them equal to the Start and Finish dates first.
2. When a Baseline has not been assigned they are used to display a Project or User Primary Baseline bar. This is because the Planned dates are represented as bars when the is selected in the Assign Baselines form.. This opens up a raft of issues with multiple users using the same Layout. Thus when one user assigns a Primary User Baseline and a second user applies this layout but they have not assigned a User Baseline the "Planned Dates" are used as a Baseline.
3. They are also used in the Activity Usage Profile to show the Budgeted values (term confusion again) and as the Baseline values when no baseline has been set. Once a Baseline has been set they use the Baseline dates.
4. They are also used in the Activity Usage Profile to show the Earned Values curves when no Baseline has been set. Once a Baseline has been set they use the Baseline values to display the Earned Values curves.

So in summary Planned Dates do not always display Planned information. They are used to display Budgeted and Current information as well. An unfortunately if you have not set a Baseline then the Planned dates will be used to display data you probably do not want displayed.

You have to be very careful with what you do with this software and make sure you have tested all your options before you start using it, so you are sure it is displaying what you think it should. It is a high risk software as things are not always what they seem to be or what they are called by the software. I am looking forward to some meaty legal cases with some mix ups that will eventuate from a misunderstanding on how the software works.

I would prefer the Planned dates to be removed from the system all together and data such as Baseline Bars and Curves should not display any data if a baseline has not been set. I would go even further to say that I would also like Budgeted values to be removed from the Current Schedule resource assignments (which is not always the Current Schedule as the Current Schedule baseline is actually the Planned dates) and only exist in a Baseline and thus remove another source of confusion which appears to have been inherited from P3.

I am glad I have retired from scheduling and now spend most of my time trying to teach people how to use this software.

Paul E Harris
Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Planning and Scheduling Training Manual & Book Publishers, Consulting and Training
www.eh.com.au

I believe Planned Start, Planned Finish, and Original Duration are only intended for Baseline Schedules.