Task Baselines
NOTE: This functionality is only
available in the Diary++ add on.
Anyone who has spent much time doing project management will have
run into a baseline before. A baseline is basically a snapshot of
your project plan at a particular time, which you can compare
against as the project progresses.
Baseline Information
There are two key pieces of information stored for a baseline.
- The number of hours for a task.
- The start and end date for a task.s
JXCirrus can store two types of baseline:
- One just tracks the number of hours spent. This is useful if
the completion date for a project is not critical, but it is
very important to make sure it stays on budget.
- One tracks both number of hours spent as well as the start and
end date. Use this for projects where both the budget and
delivery date is crucial.
Setting a Baseline
There are two ways to set a baseline.
Setting Manually
This is done through the Entry
Edit dialog. Go to the "Spent" tab. At the top of this page,
there are 3 fields:
- Baseline Duration: This is the number of hours you expect to
be spent on this.
- Baseline Start: This is the expected start date for the task
(or phase of a project). If this is blank, then you don't care
about the start.
- Baseline End: This is the expected end date for the task (or
phase of a project). If this is blank, then you don't care about
the end.
These values can be changed at a later date if you need to...
Taking a Snapshot
This is the simpler way to set a baseline:
- Set up the basic structure of your project (as a set of
tasks).
- Let the system do its automatic
planning. This will set up the start and finish dates for
the work.
- At the top level of the project, open the Item View. Open the
extended toolbar
, and press the
button (if you want a
duration-only baseline), or press
s (if you want to compare hours and date).
JXCirrus Project will now set baselines for this task and all
tasks under that.
Clearing a Baseline
- Open the Entry Edit dialog
and go to the Spent tab.
- Set the Baseline Duration, Baseline Start and Baseline End
fields to blank.
Tracking a Baseline
There are 2 locations where you can see your baseline.
- In the Item View: If you
have set a baseline, it shows "Baseline State" - This tells you
whether you are good (ahead of schedule), marginal (at risk) or
poor (already over budget), and will also tell you how much you
are over/under.
- In the Tree View: In the
completion field, the system will show an indicator icon if
there is a baseline set.
If you are on track, or ahead of schedule.
If the system predicts that you will end up over
budget.
If you are already over budget.
Baseline Progress
If this flag is set, then the task will assume that you are
spending a constant amount of time on the task between its start
date and end date. If the task is to last 2 weeks, and baseline
progress is set, then if you have spent more than half of the time
by the end of the first week, then the system will show you being
over budget for the baseline.
Auto-Baseline
This is something that is only available using Object Specs (so it can only be used
in the premium version only). This value lets you automatically
set a baseline as soon as a task is created. It also gives you the
option of having the baseline follow the number of hours set in
the task. There are 4 possible values for this:
- Hours - Record the task duration.
- HoursDate - Record the task duration and start and end date.
- FollowHours - Adjust the hours as the duration is changed.
- FollowHoursDate - Adjust the hours and the start/end as the
due date is moved.