Considerations When Modifying Project Dates

Consider these rules and recommendations before you modify the dates of control accounts or work packages.

• If there is no actual start date specified, the status is set to Planned.
• If there is an actual start date specified, the status is set to In-progress.
• If at least one work package under the selected control account has an actual start date, the status is set to In-progress.
• If there is an actual finish date specified, the status is set to Completed.
• If all the work packages under the selected control account have actual finish dates specified, the status of the control account is set to Completed and the actual finish date for the control account will be the actual finish date of the most recently completed work package.
• You cannot enter an actual finish date for a selected control account if at least one of the work packages under the control account has a status of In-progress or Planned.
• You cannot enter an actual finish date for a work package if the work package has In-progress milestones. You must first set all milestones under the work package to Completed before you can set the work package status to Completed.
• Entering actual start and finish dates automatically updates the Forecast Start and Forecast Finish fields in the General tab of the Project view with the same dates.
• Work package schedule dates cannot be outside the schedule dates of the control account. If they are, you must update the control account dates to include the work package schedule dates.
• If the schedule dates are modified for a control account or work package, you will be asked if you want to adjust the time-phased resources so that Cobra will spread them according to the new schedule dates. If you choose Yes, Cobra will spread the time-phased resources according to the new schedule dates. If you choose No, Cobra will not allow you to save the newly adjusted schedule dates until you manually adjust the spread to fit the new schedule dates as Cobra validates both included and non-included Budget classes against the baseline dates by default. If you want Cobra to validate only the included Budget classes against the baseline dates when you choose No, select the Validate only the classes included in the Budget against the baseline dates option on the Other tab of the Application Preferences dialog box.