Project Manager Step by Step User Guide

Steps:
 

1. Observe the Start date, Duration, Work, and Finish Date of your schedule.
2. Compare those values to their counterparts in the baseline section (Baseline Start, Baseline Finish, and Baseline Finish After Tolerance).
3. Notice that your RAG indicator is Green because your finish date is less than your baseline finish date.
   
   

4. Now let’s move the project into the Amber state. To do that edit the duration for some tasks and extend them to exceed the original baseline finish date.
5. Notice the baseline finish date and baseline finish date after tolerance, notice that your finish date is now within the tolerance period.
6. Therefore, observe how your RAG indicator has turned to Amber.

7. Now change the duration again to push your schedule finish date beyond the baseline finish after tolerance.
8. Observe the baselined dates.
9. Notice that your RAG indicator has now moved to Red.
   
   

10. Save your schedule.
11. Now, and since your planning shows that you cannot meet the original baseline, we need to request approval on a new baseline. To do that, click the FAB menu.
12. Select Set Schedule Baseline to define a new baseline.

13. On top of Schedule Baseline screen, you will see the tolerance already defined previously by the PMO.
14. You can define new dates for the phases in your project, notice that by default those dates will be loaded from your schedule.
15. Open the drop-down list to choose who will approve the new baseline. By default, this would be the project sponsor.
16. Add a justification to explain why you need to extend the project. This is a mandatory field.
    
    

17. Click to attach supporting documentation, for example, a change request.
18. Select the desired files to upload.
    
    

19. Notice that your selected file has been uploaded.
20. In this table you can see a history for all previous baselines approved, rejected, or pending.
21. Click “Request for Approval” to submit this request. This baseline will stay in pending state and you have to wait the approver to take action.
    
    

22. Notice that while the Request is pending, no changes are made to the schedule baseline.
23. To track the status of your baseline request, open the FAB menu.
24. Click Set Schedule Baseline
    
    

25. Notice that your request is still in the pending state.
26. Notice that the Request for Approval action is disabled, this means you cannot submit other requests because you still have a pending request.
    
    

27. Once your request has been approved, notice how the baseline fields have been updated as specified in the request. Now you have a new baseline for each stage and for the whole project.
28. Now notice how your RAG indicator has changed to Green.

29. Now let’s make more changes and push our schedule to make it late again. Now notice that your RAG indicator has turned into Red.
    
    

30. Save your schedule.
31. To request yet another new baseline, open the FAB menu.
32. Select the Set Schedule Baseline action.
    
    

33. In this screen we show the latest baseline you have requested before.
34. To define a new request you need to click “New Request”  as shown below.

35. Repeat defining a new request as we explained before.
36. Click Request for Approval to do the whole cycle again.

37. Assume you got another approval for your request, your schedule will turn into Green again!
    
    

38. To see the history of all baseline changes made to this project, go to the Project Info tab.
39. Click the Schedule Baselines action and observe the table showing the approved baselines only.
40. This table shows the history of all requests made before together with their statuses (Approved, Rejected or Pending).