Hi,

my Blog reader ha a question:

“Dear Nenad,

After  we update the  progress (% Complete) on various tasks on a baselined project, I understand we need to re-schedule  the uncompleted work to start after the status date.

This is required to  prevent the ambiguity of certain tasks with 0%  progress to start earlier than the status date.

The   Re-schedule   uncompleted work  button  under Update project  in MS Project has two options Entire Project  or  Selected Tasks.

Please  clarify when to use which of the options.

Also  when we   hit the re-schedule button , the Schedule Start  date for the tasks with 0%  progress  moves to a date later to Status Date and a SNET date constraint is imposed.

Moving  forward,   do  we need to retain the SNET constraints?

My understanding is, we need to remove the SNET constraints   by  adding lags to the predecessors and match with the SNET dates.

I feel this is essential  to obtain an accurate critical path as any   date constraints  imposed on the tasks  may hamper an accurate critical path.

Please  clarify.”

First I will create brand new Project in MS PROJECT 2013:

For Task 5 I will put  Constraint Start No earlier than 14.11.2014:

Now, I’m going to save my Project Plan as a Baseline:

and then:

and I will show Tracking Gantt View:

Now suppose that Task 1 and Task 2 are 100% finished, Task 3 is 50% finished, and Task 4 and Task 5 are 0% Finished:

OK. Now suppose that Status date is Friday, 21.11.2014:

What is done is done! I mean, time has passed, and I have to move my Project to the Status date to have real Plan. I will use Update Project:

and I will get:

Notice this:

1. Task 1, and Task 2 are as they were
2. Task 3 has split.  50% (finished) remains as it is, and another 50% (unfinished) has been moved to Monday, 24.11.2014 (After Status date)
3. Task 4, and Task 5 are moved as well. Task 4, and Task 5 have new Start no earlier than Constraint which is now Friday, 21.11.2014 (Status Date). You can remove them if you don’t need them.

And it works as it should be.

Now about last question. When to Reschedule entire project and when just Selected Tasks? It is easy. Let’s look again our Project before rescheduling:

Now suppose that we do not have information about Task 3, and Task 4. Maybe there are finished on time, but we do not know this yet. We set the status date. And we do know that Task 5 has 0% Complete at the status date. So I will reschedule only Task 5:

and I will get:

As you can see only Task 5 is rescheduled.

So use Selected Tasks only when you know that those Tasks should be rescheduled. If your Project is up to  date with Actual % Complete, and you want to have Realistic Schedule, Reschedule the whole Project!

Hope this helps!

Regards!