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Setting Baseline for an Ongoing Schedule

9 replies [Last post]
Utku Çil
User offline. Last seen 9 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 7 Jun 2011
Posts: 29

Hi to all,

I may be considered as new to planning and I really appreciate your assistance here.

I have received an ongoing schedule as an xer file from a contractor (which is prepared for a specific part of my general shedule) and I have to integrate it to my general schedule for which I'm trying to create an initial baseline. In the xer file that I get, no baseline is assigned. I can not directly import it and integrate to my system. There are two reasons for that. The first one is there are in-progress activities and I can not use those dates for a baseline. Besides, the activities under some certain WBS elements does not perfectly match with the activities that I'm planning to use. Therefore, I need to add/delete some of the activities given there which makes it difficult to handle the relationships without changing the sequence and logic. That's why, I'm planning to create my own activities and adjust the durations/relationships so that it meets with the dates&logic with the schedule that I received from the contractor.

However, when I insert the columns "Planned Start" and "Planned Finish" to the activity table, I see that these columns differ from "Start" and "Finish" dates for completed or in-progess activities. And it looks to me as if these are baseline dates of the original schedule? Is this correct?

There is no problem for "not started" activities since I can use "Planned Start" and "Planned Finish" dates as baseline dates. But when it comes to "in-progress" activities, I do not know what to do.

In short, how do I create a baseline from an on-going schedule which has "completed", "in-progress" and "not started" activities of all? As I mentioned above, no baseline is assigned in the xer file provided by the contractor?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Utku ÇİL

Replies

Mohd Anjum
User offline. Last seen 9 years 27 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 12 Feb 2011
Posts: 21

Hi utku,

 

As u said the contractor guy don't have any baseline ,he was updating on the same schedule.

But utku you can ask him how he was  tracking the progress .he might have prepared some excel file where he must be tracking the progress where you can find the original/baseline dates set when the schedule was programmed.I hope from there you can get the original/baseline dates which you can use to make a new schedule and can set as a baseline and would be able to track the progress.

from your screeen shot i can see there are many date column ,which one you are using as ur activity start and finsh date?

according to me plannes start/finsh should be equal to early start/finish...but i can see it differ...so there might be some problem with your programme.. i mean dates.

Utku Çil
User offline. Last seen 9 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 7 Jun 2011
Posts: 29

Hi AB Timo,

Thanks for your answer and the user manual that you provided. I'm already aware of the concepts, but thanks anyway :)

I have already talked to the contractor about the baseline that he has assigned in his schedule but surprisingly he told me that he did not have any baselines assigned. The impression I get from the conversation that I had with the person in charge there is that he is a new guy and he does not know the basics of Primavera. He had prepared a schedule and without assigning a baseline, he started to update.

This is just where I hit the buffers. I have an updated schedule without a baseline in my hands and now I have to set up a baseline first and then apply actuals accordingly so that it meets the dates of all completed, ın-progress and unstarted activites in the schedule that the contractor provided.

So, what to do? :)

Regards,

Utku ÇİL

AB Timo
User offline. Last seen 9 years 2 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 22 Jun 2011
Posts: 108
Groups: None

Hi Utku,

if contractor has submitted you a schedule then it is obvious that they udates are always against the baseline.Otherwise you can not monitor your progress.

 

beside this you should make your concepts clear also.

http://www.ce.metu.edu.tr/~ce736/P6ReferenceManual.pdf

This should help you,

Best Regards.

Utku Çil
User offline. Last seen 9 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 7 Jun 2011
Posts: 29

Hi AB Timo,

Thanks for your answer. What if the contractor does not have a baseline either?

Regards,

Utku ÇİL

AB Timo
User offline. Last seen 9 years 2 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 22 Jun 2011
Posts: 108
Groups: None

Hi Utku,

 

Firstly you must know that when you export an .XER File,Baseline is not exported with it.You mentioned that 

"I have received an ongoing schedule as an xer file from a contractor (which is prepared for a specific part of my general shedule) and I have to integrate it to my general schedule for which I'm trying to create an initial baseline. In the xer file that I get, no baseline is assigned"

It is obvious that you would not get the schedule with a baseline.

you better ask the contractor to provide you "two" files,one with the baseline and the other with updates and when you import both set the origional file as your baseline.only then you will have a clear idea about what was planned and what is actually going on.

 

Regards,

 

Utku Çil
User offline. Last seen 9 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 7 Jun 2011
Posts: 29

Shahul,

Thanks for the document that you have provided. It really helped me a lot to understand Planned Start/Finish dates. However, the information provided in that document contradicts with the xer file that I have.

In the document (page 11) it says:

"Planned date calculations are complex but basically if an activity is complete or in progress, they are set to equal the Actual dates. If an activity is unstarted then they are set to the early start and early finish."

I attached a screenshot that I got from my xer file:

789
planned_dates.jpg

As can be seen, the statement above holds for unstarted activites (i.e, Planned Start/Finish=Early Start/Finish). However, Planned Start/Finish dates are not equal to Actual Start/Finish dates.

Is there sth wrong with my schedule or may the statement above not always be true?

Thanks in advance,

Best Regards.

Utku ÇİL

 

Shah. HB
User offline. Last seen 15 weeks 12 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 25 Nov 2008
Posts: 773

Hi Cil

Check the below link

http://ronwinterconsulting.com/Understanding_P6_Dates.pdf

Have a look at page Nr 11 

I apologize for the inconvenience 

 

Regards

Shahul

Utku Çil
User offline. Last seen 9 years 24 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 7 Jun 2011
Posts: 29

Hi Shahul,

Thanks for your answer. But there are still some points that confuse me. Let me try to explain those.

First of all, I could not unserstand how Planned Start/Finish dates are baselines dates when there is no baseline assigned to the schedule?

Secondly, as I said in my first post, there is no problem in "Not Started" activities. But the situation gets a bit weird when when it comes to "In Progress" activities. Assume that there are 5 activities linked with FS, Lag=0 relationship successively. What I see in Activity Table looks like this:

ActivityOrg.Dur.Actual Dur.Rem.Dur.Planned Start Planned FinishStartFinish
V54031.Aug.1108.Sep.1112.Sep.11 A16.Sep.11 A
W56015.Sep.1121.Sep.1119.Sep.11 A26.Sep.11 A
X1151103.Oct.1114.Oct.1127.Sep.11 A14.Oct.11
Y2002014.Oct.1114.Nov.1114.Oct.1114.Nov.11
Z2502517.Oct.1116.Nov.1117.Oct.1116.Nov.11

 

As can be seen, I can set up Planned Start/Finish dates as baseline dates for activities "V" and "W". However, starting from the Finish date of the "In-Progress" acitivty Planned Start/Finish dates comes out to be the same with Start/Finish dates.

If the Planned Start/Finish dates are baseline dates, they should not be affected by the updated progress. But the dates above show me the opposite. It seems like Planned Start/Finish dates are not static (as you mentioned in your post).

Just a remainder: There is not any baseline assigned in the xer file that I received.

Thanks in advance,

Regards.

Utku ÇİL

 

Shah. HB
User offline. Last seen 15 weeks 12 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 25 Nov 2008
Posts: 773

Hi Utku Çil 

Planned Start/Finish dates are Baseline dates which is static ,Start/Finish dates are dynamic which reflect's the project status based on the actual updates applied to it

 

Regards

Shahul