Project Baselines

Project Baselines make it possible to save project schedules at different points in time in order to compare the current state of a project to its past state. This information can provide key insights as to where a fell off schedule or out of scope and can be viewed while a project is in flight or during a post-project review. Baselines can be found in the Baseline tab of the project tray in the Projects module.

Creating a Baseline

Any Administrator or Manager-level user can create a new baseline at any time by visiting the Baseline tab of the project tray and clicking the Create Baseline button at the top of the tray.

Additionally, Workzone will automatically create a baseline when a task in a project is first marked as complete or first has a time or expense entry applied.

Baselines will store the following data for analysis:

• Project and task duration
• Project and task workload
• Project and task planned time (workload)
• Project planned expenses (expense budget)
• Task actual time
• Task actual expenses

Multiple baselines can be created, and each can be viewed/analyzed at any point. Each baseline will show the date on which it was created and the user who created it:

Analyzing a Baseline

All user types are able to see and analyze baselines. All saved baselines are listed in the main Baseline area of the project tray, and any baseline can be analyzed by clicking the Analyze button. Admins and Managers have the ability to delete baselines by using the option in the more menu.

When analyzing a baseline, several pieces of data and analysis are displayed. All analysis will compare the data in the saved baseline to the current state of the project today. First, at the top, a project baseline overview is displayed:

• Schedule slip will show by how many days the project schedule has increased or decreased. An increase will show in red text whereas a decrease will show in green text.
• Workload variance will show by how many hours the project workload value has increased or decreased. An increase will show in red text whereas a decrease will show in green text.
• Actual time will show the amount of hours logged by users on tasks within the project.
• Budget variance will show by how many dollars the project expense budget has increased or decreased. An increase will show in red text whereas a decrease will show in green text.
• Actual expenses will show the amount of monetary expenses logged by users on tasks within the project.

Below the overview is the Task Timeline. This will display any task whose dates and/or duration have been modified since this baseline was created. Gray bars show the original dates/duration whereas blue bars show the current dates/duration. Dashed lines will show the previously scheduled end date of the task as compared to the new end date. This section will scroll vertically to show additional tasks:

Below the Timeline is the Planned Workload by Task. This specifically compares the scheduled workload values in the baseline (gray bars) to the current workload values (blue bar). This section will scroll horizontally to display additional tasks.

Below the Planned Workload is the Top Task Changes. At the top of this section will be 3 tiles that display tasks with the most drastic duration and/or workload variances. Beneath that will be an expandable list that displays all task duration and workload changes throughout the project.

In each of these views, for any task that was renamed, a small ⓘ icon will appear next to he task name. Hovering over the icon will display the old task name and new task name.