Baseline feature in the new Microsoft Planner

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As Microsoft continues with the rollout of the new Microsoft Planner, they have added the Baseline Feature to Microsoft Planner Premium plans (formerly known as Project for the web). While there are some limitations, this is a great step in the right direction for subsequent baseline features.

A Microsoft Premium plan user will need at least a Project Plan 3 license to access the baseline feature. The baseline feature allows a user to capture a project plan at a given moment in time. This serves as a reference point which can be used for comparison purposes later, helping a project manager determine if the project is on track based on when the baseline snapshot was captured.

Creating a baseline

When you select Baseline on the top right, a side panel comes out allowing you to create a new baseline and give it a name, along with a note about the baseline. In Figure 1 we see the Baseline for the ‘Absolute Technology R400 Infrastructure’ project, showing our project is on-track, the baseline Start and Finish dates, as well as Duration and Effort.

Baseline feature, things to know

There are a few things that are important to note:

-Only the project level baseline is displayed in the side panel, but all tasks in the schedule are also baselined, which means you can access both project and task level baseline data through reporting or exporting it directly from Dataverse.
-As mentioned above, you’ll need at least a P3 license to use the baseline feature.
-Baselines cannot be imported from Project desktop or other tools.
-Currently there is only the ability to capture one baseline. There are no update capabilities; you would have to delete the existing baseline and recapture a new baseline. The result is that it does not provide any type of audit trail of what changed from baseline to baseline, which is what is really desirable.
-While a one-time baseline feature is a positive addition, it does not provide the same capabilities as offered in Project Online, where multiple baselines can be taken at different points in time. Nor are you able to make changes at the task level.

Conclusion

The Baseline feature provides a Project Manager the capability to capture a project plan at a point in time, giving a reference point for keeping the project on track to that baseline. We look forward to further improvements in this area from Microsoft in the future.

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