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08 Baselines and Earned Value
After a round of scheduling, "Project → Save baseline" stores the current schedules of all tasks as a snapshot.
- You can save multiple baselines and switch the active baseline (the one used for comparison) at any time
- A baseline is a historical record and is unaffected by later changes
- Deleting a baseline: menu bar "Project → Delete current baseline"
Once a baseline is set, these four columns in the outline have values:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Baseline start / Baseline finish | The dates at snapshot time |
| Start variance / Finish variance | The difference from the baseline now, in workdays; a positive number = later than planned |
These columns are read-only derived values—they're computed from "current schedule" and "baseline" and can't be edited directly.
To see earned value, you need two things:
- An active baseline (provides the budget and planned value)
- A status date (
statusDate, asking "as of this day, how's progress")
Once set, these metrics in the outline/inspector have values (all derived by the engine; the interface only displays them, it doesn't compute):
| Metric | Meaning |
|---|---|
| BAC | Budget at Completion—the baseline total cost |
| BCWS / PV | Planned Value: as of the status date, the portion of the budget that was planned to be completed |
| BCWP / EV | Earned Value: as of the status date, the portion of the budget that is actually complete (prorated by progress) |
| SV | Schedule Variance = EV − PV. Negative = behind schedule. Measured in currency |
ACWP (actual cost), CV (cost variance), EAC (estimate at completion) are grayed out in the column menu—
because all three need a data source of actual-cost entry ("how much did this work item actually cost") and this version has no entry point for that yet. No data, so no faking a metric: the whole column is disabled rather than showing 0.
Related: precisely because cost is entered at the resource level (
Cost/Use+Cost/Hour), the task cost, resource cost, and total cost columns are derived and read-only; to change cost, go to the resource panel.
Next: Views and Inspector.