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Project baseline

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Overview

Suppose you want to make sure that your project is always on the beam in terms of start and end date, so that adding new activities will not affect the project's timetable in a way which may be detrimental to project's time performance.

This is what the baseline is for.

The baseline in Birdview refers to a snapshot of the project's start and end date at a given moment. This allows the project manager to include baseline-related fields in a custom report via the Report Generator and thus compare it with the current start and end dates. This gives a perspective on how well the project adheres to the baseline plan.

Normally, the baseline is captured right before the start of the project so that a reference point is established before the project starts. Then, at a point when some major changes have been introduced into the project's plan of implementation, the baseline can be updated by re-capturing it to have a new reference point. The previous baseline is overwritten in the process.

When a project's baseline is captured, that of all its activities is captured too. However, you cannot capture an individual activity's baseline.

Capturing project baseline

To capture the baseline of a project:

  1. Log in to your Birdview account.
  2. Select Activity Center.
  3. Click the name of the project whose baseline you want to capture.
  4. In the project details section, click the More actions button (ac_act_details_addit_options_btn.png).
  5. Click "Capture baseline".
  6. If the baseline is captured successfully, a message will be displayed.
  7. Upon successful capture, the 'Capture baseline' menu item is replaced with "Overwrite baseline ([Date of the previous baseline capture])".

capture_baseline.png

baseline_captured_msg.png

overwrite_baseline_item.png

Updating baseline (Overwrite baseline)

If the baseline you set initially seems to be too hard to meet, in the sense that adding new tasks leads to deviations from the baseline too often, you may want to set a new baseline at a time when the project is doing well in terms of time performance. In other words, you may occasionally need to update your current baseline. This may also be required if your project has changed scope-wise, or it has turned out that you need more resources than you originally planned for. You may need to check with your project stakeholders and consider setting a new baseline.

You can capture the baseline as regularly as you like, with the current baseline being overwritten in the process. This is called baseline updating or overwriting. The capture date of the current baseline is given in parentheses on the "More actions" menu in the project details section (see illustration above).

To update/overwrite the current baseline:

  1. Log in to your Birdview account.
  2. Select Activity Center.
  3. Click the name of the project whose baseline you want to re-capture.
  4. In the project details section, click the More actions button (ac_act_details_addit_options_btn.png).
  5. Click 'Overwrite baseline'.
  6. If the baseline is captured successfully, a message will be displayed.
  7. Upon successful capture, the baseline capture date is updated to that of the one just captured.

Audit trail log record

As with most changes made to a project, baseline capture is recorded in the project's audit trail log for future reference.

As a result, you can view the whole history of baseline captures performed during the project's lifetime.

Baseline-related columns in Activity Center

To track baseline data in Activity center, the following columns are available:

  • Baseline start date
  • Baseline end date
  • Baseline duration
  • Baseline estimated hours
  • Baseline EAC labor cost
  • Baseline budget
  • Baseline EAC billable.

See Activity center - Customization for how add columns in Activity center. 

 

Baseline report

To produce a report containing baseline-related details, use Report Generator. To learn more, click here.

The following baseline-specific fields are currently available:

  • Project Baseline Start Date;
  • Project Baseline End Date.
  • Project Start Date Variance
  • Project End Date Variance
  • Project Total Budget
  • Project Baseline Total Budget
  • Project Estimated Hours
  • Project Baseline Estimated Hours 
  • Activity1 Baseline Start Date
  • Activity1 Baseline End Date
  • Activity1 Start Date Variance
  • Activity1 End Date Variance
  • Activity1 Total Budget
  • Activity1 Baseline Total Budget
  • Activity1 Own Estimated Hours
  • Activity1 Baseline Estimated Hours 

To generate a project baseline report:

  1. Log in to your Birdview account.
  2. Select Reports | Report generator on the menu on the left.
  3. Click "Add report".
  4. Give a name to the report.
  5. Select "Projects" in the "Generate report from" field.
  6. Select the type of report.
  7. Under "Key information", click '+ Add field'.
  8. Select "Baseline End Date" and "Baseline Start Date" among the Project fields.
  9. Select any other fields, according to the layout of the report you wish to generate.
  10. Click "Save & Run" to save and view the report.

An activity baseline2 report is generated similarly. The difference is the value selected in the "Generate report from" field (All Activities, Tasks, etc.), and the data source fields selected via '+ Add field' button (pertaining to all activities, tasks, issues or requests).

 

1 Activity here refers to activities in general ('All Activities' is selected in the "Generate report from" field), or tasks, issues and requests ('Tasks', 'Issues', or 'Requests' is selected in the "Generate report from" field). Refer to Report Generator to learn more.

2 Activity baseline is that which is captured along with the project's baseline.

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