Last Updated: September 5, 2026

Activity 12: Baseline Project

In Activity 12 of the MS Project Master Class, you will get your project ready for execution by setting an approved baseline. This baseline records your planned schedule, costs, and work details. As your project moves forward, you can use it to compare your actual results with your original plan and spot any differences.

This Activity Workspace guides you through the full baselining process. You will do a final review of your project, set up a way to manage rebaselining, and save the approved baseline in Microsoft Project. You will also learn how to use multiple baseline sets, keep a backup, look at interim plans, and use the Compare Projects feature to find differences between project versions.

By the end of this Activity, your Master Project will be reviewed, approved, technically sound, and baselined. It will be ready to serve as your main reference point when you start executing your project.

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Activity 12 Workspace Outline

Activity 11: Create Compliance Plan < Activity 12: Baseline Project > Activity 13: Update Project

Complete this Activity in the order presented. Begin by understanding the workflow, then reinforce the concepts through the exercises before reviewing your work and completing the Activity assessment. Each section builds on the previous one and prepares you for the next stage of the Project MAP framework.

Workflow (35 minutes)

Exercises (3 hours 30 minutes) jump to

Exercise 12.1 Baseline Project Workflow (15 minutes) jump to

Exercise 12.2 Baseline Activities (10 minute) jump to

Exercise 12.3 Set Interim Plans (30 minutes) jump to

Exercise 12.4 Compare Projects (15 minutes) jump to

This entire Activity Workspace should take 4 hours and 58 minutes to complete.

This Activity Workspace is part of the MS Project Master Class learning system and the companion Master Class Book available on Amazon. Many students also complete the Master Class with the assistance of a Master Class Coach or Trainer.

The project baselining, performance measurement methods, and best practices shared in this Activity Workspace come from over 35 years of experience teaching Microsoft Project, training consultants, deploying Project Server, and helping professionals around the world.

Internalizing the Activity 12 Workflow (25 minutes)

Overview and What You Will Learn

Before you begin the exercises in this Activity Workspace, take a moment to look over the Activity 12 Workflow. It explains the key decisions and Microsoft Project tools you will use to set up an approved project baseline and prepare your project for launch.

In this Activity, you will do a final check of your project plan to make sure it is complete, accurate, realistic, and ready for approval. You will review key planning details like scope, schedule, resources, costs, work, dependencies, constraints, risks, estimates, and stakeholder expectations before you set the plan as your baseline.

You will also decide how to manage rebaselining if major approved changes happen later. You will learn why you should not change a baseline just because actual results are different from the plan, how Microsoft Project's multiple baseline sets can keep approved versions of your plan, and how the Compare Projects feature helps you spot changes between project versions.

Finally, you will set the project's timing, cost, and work details as a baseline in Microsoft Project. You will learn how to save and manage baselines, use multiple baseline sets, keep baseline information safe, and see the difference between a baseline and an interim plan. These skills will help you compare your approved plan with how the project actually performs later on.

This Activity focuses on an important idea from the MS Project Master Class: a baseline is more than just a saved copy of your schedule. It is the approved reference point for measuring and controlling your project’s progress. Once you set the baseline, Microsoft Project can help you find differences in schedule, cost, and work, and show how actual results compare to what was approved.

Learn Adopt PM/MS Project Standards Workflow (10 minutes)

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Activity 12: Baseline Project Workflow Chart

Before beginning the exercises in this Activity Workspace, take time to carefully review and internalize the Activity 4 Workflow Chart. This workflow represents more than a sequence of software steps. It reflects the logical process used to establish the PM/MS Project Standards that will govern how your Master Project is planned, calculated, organized, and managed.

As you work through this Activity, continually return to this workflow and use it to understand how the pieces fit together. The goal is not simply to complete exercises, but to develop a repeatable planning approach you can apply to future projects. Over time, this workflow should become second nature—helping you think more systematically about project setup, Calculation Engine configuration, Project Elements, and the overall project management environment before detailed planning begins.

The remaining Planning Activities depend on these standards being established correctly. Internalize the workflow now, and the rest of the Master Class will become far easier to understand and apply.

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Completing the Exercises for Activity 12 (#####)

In these Activity exercises, you will learn how to set up and keep an approved project baseline. First, you will review the project and see what information needs to be saved when creating the baseline. Next, you will use Microsoft Project to save, review, manage, and protect this baseline information so you can use it as a reference for tracking the project's progress.

While working through the exercises, you will see how Microsoft Project saves baseline schedule, cost, and work details. You will also learn how to view and compare this information with your current project plan. You will use the Baseline Table to save a baseline, create extra baseline sets, clear or copy baseline data, and check how project updates affect differences from the baseline.

You will also review interim plans and see how they differ from full baselines. You will save a copy of your project file and use the Compare Projects feature in Microsoft Project to spot differences between project versions. These exercises show different ways to keep approved project information and track changes as the project moves forward.

After finishing these exercises, you will know how to set a baseline in Microsoft Project and why it is important to keep the baseline unchanged once the project starts. The project plan will keep changing as work is done and real data is added, but the baseline stays the same so you can measure schedule, cost, and work performance against it.

Exercise 12.1 Baseline Project Workflow (15 minutes)

In this exercise, you will work through the Baseline Project Workflow from final project review through establishing the baseline and using it to evaluate project performance. Before setting the baseline, you will examine the project for completeness, accuracy, technical quality, resource allocation, scope, risk, estimates, and stakeholder alignment. You will also use the Pre-Baseline Checklist to evaluate whether your own Master Project is ready to be baselined.

You will then establish the baseline and examine the relationship between Current, Baseline, Actual, and Variance information in Microsoft Project. After making several project updates, you will see how Microsoft Project preserves the approved baseline while recalculating the current schedule and displaying the resulting schedule, work, and cost variances. By the end of the exercise, you should be able to look beyond individual fields and tell the story of project performance—what changed, how actual performance compares with the approved plan, and what the current schedule now predicts.

Just as importantly, you will consider the governance side of baselining. You will review when re-baselining may be appropriate, why a baseline should not be changed simply to eliminate unfavorable variances, and why significant baseline changes should be authorized and the previous baseline preserved.

The objective is not simply to learn how to click Set Baseline. It is to understand how an approved project plan becomes the performance reference used to control the project.

To start this exercise, download the Baseline Workflow.mpp file using the icon above and open it in Microsoft Project. Ensure your global settings in Project Options are correct, and use Microsoft Project 2019 or later for best results.

Conduct a Final Review

As mentioned in the Baseline Project Workflow Chart above, before saving a baseline, conduct a final review to confirm that the project plan is complete, accurate, realistic, and approved. Verify the project's scope, schedule, resources, costs, work, dependencies, constraints, risks, and other planning assumptions. Once the plan has been approved, Microsoft Project can save its schedule, cost, and work information as the baseline against which project performance will later be measured. Answer these questions before baselining:

Check Data Accuracy: Are task details, resources, durations, estimates, dependencies, and other project data complete and accurate?

1) Check Data Accuracy: Are task details, resources, durations, estimates, dependencies, and other project data complete and accurate?
2) Resource Allocation: Are resources assigned correctly, and have resource conflicts and overallocations been identified and resolved?
3) Review Scope: Does the project scope align with the approved project objectives, and have any unauthorized scope changes been identified and addressed?
4) Risk Assessment: Have project risks and uncertainties been identified, assessed, and appropriately addressed?
5) Estimates: Have duration, work, cost, and resource estimates been reviewed and confirmed as reasonable and complete?
6) Stakeholder Alignment: Have the appropriate stakeholders reviewed and approved the project plan that will become the baseline?
7) Project Objectives and Charter: How will approved project elements outside the Microsoft Project plan—such as objectives, charter information, requirements, and other project documents—be preserved and controlled as approved project references?

8) Technical Accuracy: Has the project been reviewed for technical accuracy and confirmed to meet the standards established for a Master Project?

For instance, you always need to make sure your project plan in Microsoft Project is technically correct and adheres to best practices.

This Baseline Workflow.mpp project has not been baselined. One of the first things to do before baselining a project is to conduct a final technical review. This review might include assessing the project plan unique to your organization and an external assessment such as DMCA 14-Point Assessment. 

You can, of course, review a project and ensure it is built consistently with the Best Practices we have reviewed in this Master Class. There are also add-ins available for Microsoft Project that will assess your project against industry standards. One tool is Schedule Inspector by Barbecanna.  In the figure below,

Schedule Inspector applies up to 31 conditions or quality checks. Some of the basic conditions are:

• Duplicate task names

• Manually scheduled tasks

• No predecessors

• No resources

• No successors

• Summary tasks with relationships

• Summary tasks with resources

• Tasks with redundant predecessors

This tool was used to assess the Baseline Workflow.mpp file.

In the example above, Activity 1 has no predecessor. Technically, the first milestone or activity has no predecessor, and the last has no successor, so this is not an issue. But it reminds me that the first line item in a project’s first phase should be a Project Start milestone. Add a Project Started milestone and make it a predecessor to Activity 1.

The Pre-Baseline Checklist.docm helps you decide if your project is ready for its baseline. It includes 58 statements covering the General Review and the Initiating, Planning, Execution, and Closing phases. This checklist shows which areas are complete, which need more work, and what issues could affect baseline approval.

Rate each statement from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 10 (Strongly Agree), using the information and evidence you have for your project. Once you finish rating, click the Calculate Score button. This will show your section and overall scores, update the results table, and give you a percentage out of a maximum score of 580.

The checklist supports your professional judgment, stakeholder review, and the required baseline approval process, not replace them. The suggested readiness scores can help you spot concerns, but even a high score does not guarantee your project is ready for baselining. If important issues remain unresolved, it may still be best to delay approval.

Fill out the checklist before you set the baseline. Review any items with low ratings, and resolve or formally address any major concerns before moving forward.

Click the download button above, then download and open the Pre-Baseline Checklist.docm file, and calculate the score for your Master Project to determine if you are ready to set the baseline.

Determine Process for Rebaselined

A project baseline lets managers compare actual performance against the approved plan. You should not change the baseline just because the project is running late, over budget, or needs more work than expected. These are called variances, and tracking them is a key reason for having a baseline.

Sometimes, rebaselining is the right choice. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says baseline changes should be rare and occur only when the current baseline no longer provides useful information about cost, schedule, or performance. The GAO also notes that big changes in scope or formal replanning can justify updating the baseline (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2015, 2014).

Microsoft Project lets managers keep up to 11 different baseline sets: Baseline and Baseline 1 through Baseline 10. Microsoft explains that extra baselines help when major changes to tasks or costs make the old baseline less useful for tracking the project (Microsoft, n.d.).

Criteria for Rebaselining

Think about rebaselining your project if these conditions apply:

• A significant change has been officially approved. Rebaseline only after an authorized change or a formal decision to replan, not because of normal project variances.

• The approved change significantly affects the project plan. It affects key elements such as the project’s scope, goals, requirements, schedule, cost, work, resources, and other planning details.

• The current baseline is no longer a useful way to measure performance. The approved change is so significant that using the old baseline would produce misleading or unhelpful results.

• The new baseline has been checked and approved. The updated project plan should be realistic and must be reviewed and authorized by whoever is responsible for approving the project’s baseline.

• The previous baseline will be kept. The organization should decide how to save the old baseline and other approved project details so the project’s history is not lost when a new baseline is set.

A helpful way to decide is to ask yourself these questions:

1. Has a significant project change been formally approved?

2. Does the approved change materially alter the project plan?

3. Has the change made the existing baseline an inappropriate or misleading reference for measuring future performance?

4. Has the appropriate authority approved establishing a new baseline?

5. Will the previous baseline be preserved so that the project's history can still be evaluated?

If you meet these conditions, rebaselining might be the right step. Remember, rebaselining is a controlled project management decision, not just a regular Microsoft Project task.

The last step in the workflow is to finally Set the Baseline.

If you have closed the Baseline Project Workflow.mpp file, open it again. Note the fields in the table applied in the active view. It has three sections: Duration, Cost, and Work.

This first section (in red) is called Current. The current duration, cost, and work are associated with each WBS element.

The green section is Baseline or Planned. The baseline hasn’t been set, so all values are zero.

The last section shows variances between Current and Baseline.

To Set the Baseline

Select the Project tab on the ribbon and Set Baseline to set the baseline.  Set the baseline for this project using the default Baseline for the Entire Project. 

Once the baseline has been set, notice in the figure below that the Baseline and Variance data have changed. Also notice that Baseline-formatted taskbars appear under the Current taskbars. If you open Bar Styles and scroll down to the bottom of the list, you will notice that there is a condition for displaying a bar for Normal Tasks, from the Baseline Start to the Baseline Finish.

You can do a lot with baseline data, and we'll explore several options. One thing I want to mention before we go on is that you can edit any baseline values.

For instance, as shown in the figure below, change the Baseline Duration and Work at the project summary level to 15 days and $40,000. Then change the Baseline Work for Activity 1 to 60hrs. Notice the changes to the corresponding variance fields. I am not recommending this practice, but it is good to know if needed. If I had a good reason to make these edits, I would likely also change the Baseline Work on the summary level to 204 hrs.

Let’s make some simple updates to the project, but first, add three fields to the table applied in the view. Add % Complete, Actual Duration, Actual Cost, and Actual Work, and place them in that order before the Duration field, as shown below.

Then, in the taskbar area, remove the date field for milestones and for Tasks, replace the Resource Names field with the % Complete field.

Last, add a Deadline date of 1/19/28 for the Project Finished milestone.

After making these changes to the table, view, and Project Finished milestone, make the following changes and updates: 

• Make sure all of the WBS elements are automatically scheduled. That is always a good thing to check before baselining and updating.

• Add the Finish Variance field or column at the end of the table.

• Let’s say you decided to get a jump on the project and start during the holidays. In Project Information, change the Project Start Date to 12/27/27. Notice:

  • The entire schedule shifted back to that start date.

  • The baseline taskbars stayed the same.

  • There are now -5 working days of variance.

• Mark the Project Started milestone as 100% complete

• Enter a duration of 7 days for Activity1 and then mark it as 100% complete. You can do this in either the Actual Duration or Duration fields. If you enter 7 days in the Actual Duration field, the calculation will automatically mark the activity as 100% complete. If you enter 7 days in the Duration field, you will also have to enter 100%. I hope you can see why. Notice:

  • The schedule shifted forward.

  • There is now -3 days of Finish Variance.

  • There is a 2 day Duration Variance for the activity.

  • There is a Cost Variance of $5,600 because of an increase of 52 hours of Work.

  • There is a rollup calculation of $5,200 on the project summary level. (Do you know why?)

  • The taskbar for this activity is displayed as complete. A black bar all the way through the activity.

• Assign Ted at 100% to Activity 2 along with Alice, enter a duration of 2 days, and then mark it as 100% complete. Notice:

  • There is a -1 day Duration Variance.

  • There is an increase Cost Variance of $2,000. Do you know why? Take a look at Alice and Ted’s standard rates.

  • The project is scheduled to finish 4 working days early.

• Enter 25% complete for Activity 3.

Save the project.

Can you tell the story? This update could be easily summarized by saying, “The project started a week early. We are over budget by $7,200, and we have spent 40 more hours of effort than planned. We expect to finish four working days early.”

Field Note: Re-Baselining Is a Governance Decision

While consulting for Siemens and IBM, I came across project-control manuals nearly two inches thick. These manuals detailed every step, approval, and document needed to re-baseline a project. From this, I learned that re-baselining is much more than just saving a new baseline in Microsoft Project. It is often a major governance and contractual decision.

For large capital projects, the original baseline often becomes part of the statement of work, contract, or funding agreement. Before setting this baseline, the project usually goes through a detailed readiness review to make sure the scope, estimates, resources, schedule, risks, and communications are solid. The main goal of the pre-baseline review in Activity 12 is to carefully check the plan before using it to measure future performance.

After the baseline is set, it should not be changed just because the project is running late, costs have gone up, estimates were off, or actual results differ from the plan. Changing it for these reasons would remove the variance information the baseline is meant to track. Instead, most organizations use a formal change-management process. This process documents the reason for re-baselining, evaluates the impact, gets approval from the right people, and keeps the old baseline for future comparison.

That is why Activity 12 recommends setting re-baselining criteria before the project starts. The Workspace treats this as a key part of disciplined project control, rather than something to figure out later if problems come up.

The main takeaway is straightforward: setting a baseline creates accountability, and re-baselining changes it. Review both steps carefully, justify them in writing, and get proper approval.

Exercise 12.2 Baseline Activities (30 minutes)

Exercise 12.2 takes you deeper into the Microsoft Project mechanics behind baseline management. A baseline is not a single value or field. Microsoft Project maintains multiple sets of baseline information for tasks, resources, work, costs, dates, and other project data, and those values can appear differently depending on the view and fields being examined.

Using the Set Baseline.mpp exercise file, you will investigate existing baseline information from several perspectives, including the Gantt Chart, Resource Sheet, and Task Usage Baseline views. You will identify existing baseline data, clear selected baseline sets, verify that the information has been removed, and then establish a new baseline for the entire project.

Finally, you will learn an important baseline-management practice: preserving the original baseline before making significant changes or re-baselining. Microsoft Project provides the primary Baseline plus Baseline 1 through Baseline 10. In the exercise, you will copy the newly established baseline into another baseline set, giving you a preserved reference to compare with later versions of the project.

Exercise 12.1 establishes why the baseline matters and how it supports project control. Exercise 12.2 shows you how to manage that baseline information deliberately so the project's history and approved performance references are not accidentally lost.

To start this exercise, download the Set Baseline.mpp file using the icon above and then open the file in Microsoft Project.

You can always clear the baseline if you want to ensure there is no baseline information, and you can check several views to ensure no remnant baseline data remains. First, let’s check whether any baseline information exists.

First, there are many different baseline fields: 10 baseline sets of fields and 10 related interim sets of fields. In total, without counting, I estimate there are about 140 baseline fields. For instance, for the Baseline set of fields, which will likely be the ones you will most likely use most of the time, these fields are in this set:

• Baseline Budget Cost

• Baseline Budget Work

• Baseline Cost

• Baseline Deliverable Finish

• Baseline Deliverable Start

• Baseline Duration

• Baseline Estimated Duration

• Baseline Estimated Finish

• Baseline Estimated Start

• Baseline Finish

• Baseline Start

• Baseline Work

As you know, you can enter baseline data in any of these baseline fields, so if you are working with a file that has baselines set and want to rebaseline, review it and make sure the baseline data has been cleared.

To Clear Baselines and Interim Plans

Click the Set Baseline command under the Project tab on the ribbon. Select Clear Baseline, then select the baseline or interim data you want to clear. No command clears all baseline and interim plan data across all sets.

Microsoft Project does indicate when baselines or interim plans have been set, as shown in the next figure. It does not indicate that an interim plan has been set.

Before we clear any baseline data, let’s apply a couple of views and review some data sets.

In the Gantt Chart view for the Set Baseline.mpp file, there are three baseline data sets displayed in the table.

• For the Baseline data set, six fields are showing no data.

• For the Baseline3 data set, Baseline3 Duration has data.

• For the Baseline6 data set, Baseline6 Duration has data.

Apply the Resource Sheet view.

• For the Baseline data set, two fields are showing no data.

• For the Baseline3 data set, Baseline3 Work has data.

• For the Baseline6 data set, Baseline6 Work has data.

Apply the Task Usage Baseline view.

• For the Baseline data set, two fields are showing no data.

• For the Baseline3 data set, Baseline3 Work has data.

• For the Baseline6 data set, Baseline6 Work has data.

Now clear the baseline for Baseline3 and Baseline6 datasets. When you’re done, check each of these three views and notice that there are no baseline values.

Set the Baseline

Next, set the baseline for the entire project. Notice that the date the baseline has been set has been added.

Saving a Backup of a Baseline

Let’s say you want to keep a backup of the original baseline. You can easily copy the baseline into one of the other 10 baselines.

Field Note: Why I Always Preserve the Original Baseline

A customer once told me that whenever they set a project baseline, they would immediately copy it into one of Microsoft Project’s extra baseline fields, like Baseline 10, as a backup. At the time, I thought this was unnecessary, maybe even a bit silly. Why back up a baseline? After all, you’re not supposed to change it.

I soon found out why this mattered.

I was managing a complex project on a property I co-owned with others in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, between Sámara and Nosara. The land sat about three kilometers inland as the crow flies, up in the hills with a view of the Pacific Ocean.

Guanacaste isn’t the lush rainforest most people imagine when they think of Costa Rica. Instead, much of it is tropical dry forest with a long dry season. Many trees lose their leaves to save water, then turn bright green again when the rains return. From our property, the hills stretched toward the Pacific, offering amazing coastal views. It felt as close to paradise as I’d ever been.

The project itself was far from perfect. It was complicated, involved several owners, and changed many times. At one point, I realized that the baseline values for some tasks had been altered. I had just argued with the project manager about related issues and was sure the original baseline supported me. I went back to my cabin, opened the Microsoft Project plan, and started checking the numbers.

Then I had an unpleasant realization: I had no proof to support my case.

I could see the current baseline, but I couldn’t prove what it had said before. I didn’t have an untouched copy to compare. So there I was, in paradise, surrounded by dry forest and looking out at the Pacific, scratching my head and trying to figure out what happened to those original baseline values.

Suddenly, that customer’s idea didn’t seem silly anymore.

Microsoft Project gives you Baseline plus Baseline 1 through Baseline 10, so you have 11 sets of baseline fields. Now, before I change or re-baseline a project, I save the current baseline in one of those extra sets. The goal isn’t to create different versions of the truth, but to keep a record of what was approved before anything changes.

This lesson ties in with Activity 12. A baseline is more than just saved dates and numbers. It shows the approved schedule, work, and cost expectations that future performance will be measured against. The Activity Workspace stresses the importance of reviewing the project carefully before setting the baseline and deciding ahead of time how to handle re-baselining if big changes happen.

What I learned in Guanacaste was simple: never assume an important baseline will stay the same. Always save the original before making changes. Storage is cheap, but rebuilding history later can be impossible.

Copying a Baseline

You can of course save another baseline into one of the other baseline data sets to make a backup. You can also copy one baseline set into another. To do that, click the Set Baseline command, and then Set interim plan. Copy your baseline Into Baseline6, for instance.

For the Set Baseline.mpp file, copy the baseline into the Baseline6 data set. The Baseline6 fields in your views will match your baseline values.

Save the project.

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Exercise 4.2: Save a Project as a Template *.mpt (30 minutes)

In this next exercise, you will review and save a project as a Microsoft Project template file.

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Review Microsoft Project Features Used in Activity 4 (15 minutes)

Calculation Engine

By effectively managing vacation time and availability adjustments in Microsoft Project, you ensure that your