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Update a baseline

Managing Projects > Creating Baselines

As a project progresses, you might choose to update baseline data without restoring the baseline or creating a new baseline. When a project is in progress, creating a new baseline may not yield accurate comparison results. When you update a baseline, only the data types you select will be updated.

1. Choose Project, Maintain Baselines.
2. In the Maintain Baselines dialog box, select the baseline you want to update.
3. Click Update.
4. In the Update Baseline dialog box, select the types of data you want to update.

   For project-level data, you can choose to update project details, work products and documents, and risks, issues, and thresholds. You do not have to select any of these options.

   Note: If you choose to update project details, the following items are NOT updated: all data in the Default, Settings, and Resources tabs; the Risk Level and the Project Leveling Priority fields in the General tab; and, the Default Price/Unit for Activities Without Resource or Role Price/Units field in the Calculations tab.

   For activity-level data, you can choose to update all activities or activities that meet a filter's criteria. If you choose to update activities based on a filter, click the browse button to select a filter. If you choose to update all activities, the module overwrites all activities in the baseline.

   You can also choose to add new activities to the baseline, delete activities from the baseline that are no longer in the project, and update existing activities with new activity data. If you only want to update project-level data (and not activity-level data), clear all of the activity-level data options.

5. Enter or select a filename to log errors during the update process (when connected to a P6 Professional database only).
6. If you are updating existing activity data, click Update Options.
7. In the Activity tab of Update Options, select the types of activity data you want to update.

   Note: If you choose to update 'Dates, durations, and data date' in the Update Baseline Options dialog box, the following date fields are NOT updated because they are calculated by the scheduler: Early Start, Early Finish, Late Start, and Late Finish. To ensure that these fields are updated, after you run the baseline update, you should restore the baseline project, then schedule and re-baseline the project.

8. In the Resource Assignment tab of Update Options, select the types of resource and role assignment data you want to update.
9. Click Preview.
10. In the Preview Changes dialog box, click nodes in the tree to view the changes that would be made to the baseline according to the options you selected. You can print the change preview list. Click Close to return to the Update Baseline dialog box.
11. Optionally adjust any settings required to ensure the updates to the baseline are as you would expect.
12. Click Update.

Tips

• If you encounter errors during the Update Baseline process, schedule the project to the current data date, then run Update Baseline again. This may resolve some errors that can occur when updating a baseline.
• When you update a baseline, the module stores the date on which the baseline was last updated. You can view this date in the Last Update Date field of the Maintain Baselines dialog box. The module does not consider the last update date when you choose the Ignore Last Update Date option in the Update Baseline dialog box. We recommend that you select the Ignore Last Update Date option if you plan to update different data types at different times (that is, you will not simply be updating all baseline data each time). If you do not select this option, some data types may not be updated from the correct date when you run the baseline update. For example:
  
  - On June 1st, you run a baseline update that includes activity steps.
  
  - On June 8th, you run a baseline update that does NOT include activity steps.
  
  - On June 15th, you run a baseline update that includes activity steps. You do not select the Ignore Last   Update Date option.
  
  Given this scenario, when you run the baseline update on June 15th, activity steps are only updated from June 8th because the baseline is updated from the last update date. If you select the Ignore Last Update Date option, all changes to activity steps are updated regardless of the date the baseline was last updated.
  
• To overwrite all activity data, choose All Activities and all of the activity data options.
• If you only want to update project-level data, select the project data options and clear the add new, delete, and update activity options. If you clear these activity data options, it does not matter if All Activities or Activities Within the Following Filter is selected - no activity data will be updated.
• To optimize baseline update performance, select the Run Optimized option in the Update Baseline dialog box. If errors occur when updating a baseline in optimized mode, you will not be able to determine the data item that is causing the update to fail. To determine the data item causing the failure, turn off the Run Optimized option and rerun the baseline update. After the update is complete, refer to the log file to determine which data item is causing the update to fail.
• Baseline update performance is further optimized when you log in as an Admin Superuser.

Notes

• When connected to a P6 Professional database: You must have the project privilege Maintain Project Baselines to update a baseline. Additionally, We recommend that you have all project and global view, create, edit, and delete privileges (for example, View Project Costs/ Financials, Add/Edit/Delete Work Products and Documents, etc.) before running a baseline update. If you do not have these privileges, you may receive an error message when you attempt to update the baseline.

When connected to a P6 EPPM database: You must have the appropriate global and project privileges as defined in P6 to update a baseline.

• When connected to a P6 EPPM database this process runs as a job service. To see the progress of the job, choose Tools, Job Status.
• A project's baselines cannot be updated if the project has been opened in Exclusive mode or if the project is currently checked out by another user.
• Baselines that contain future period buckets on resource or role assignments are updated automatically.
• When connected to a P6 Professional database: If errors occur while the project is updating, the module logs the errors in the specified log file (if the Run Optimized option is not selected) and continues updating the project.
• When connected to a P6 EPPM database: If errors occur while the project is updating, the module logs the errors in the corresponding job service log file (if the Run Optimized option is not selected) and continues updating the project. You can view the log file by clicking Tools, Job Status.
• New or modified Primary Resource assignments are always updated for an activity if you choose to update 'General activity information' in the Update Baseline Options dialog, even if you do not choose the 'Update existing resource and role assignments' and 'Add new resource and role assignments' options in the Update Options dialog.
• If you choose to update activity relationships, only relationships between activities within the project are updated; relationships to activities in external projects are not updated.
• Project calendars, activity codes, and the WBS are always updated.
• If you choose to update issues or work products and documents but not activities, the new issues or work products and documents are added without activity assignments.
• If you choose to update activities that fall within a filter and choose to add new activities, only activities that meet that filter's criteria will be added.

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Last Published Friday, October 4, 2024