Advance Calendar

Advancing the calendar is very similar to the month-end closeout process in accounting. After all of your reports are completed and you are ready to start statusing the next month or week, you advance the calendar to the next reporting period.

Use the Advance Calendar Preferences dialog box to select the options for advancing the calendar. Use the Advance Calendar Wizard to advance the calendar.

At the time that the calendar is advanced, the following processes occur:

  • The beginning period budget value is captured for the first line in the IPMR Format 3-Baseline report. This creates a snapshot of the time-phased baseline at the beginning of the period, which is written over each time you advance the calendar. This is only performed at month-end in a rolling wave calendar.
  • A snapshot of the data displayed in the Control Account pane of the Project view is stored in the baseline history table. These values are stored for each month throughout the life of the project and are used to see how the variances, BAC, and Forecast change over time. This process is only performed at month-end in a rolling wave calendar.
  • In calendar set 18 (Previous, TODATE, At Completion), the labels and flags identifying the previous period and the current status date are advanced to the next period.
  • Any floating flags on other calendar sets need to be moved forward to the next labeled period.
  • The status date in the Project Properties dialog box is updated.
  • The cumulative Budget to Date displayed in the Spreadsheet pane of the Project view is updated.
  • At the end-of-a-month period in a rolling wave project, the data for the previous period is consolidated and future period data is expanded to match the window of expanded data specified.
  • If FTEs are used with a rolling wave calendar, the rates for FTEs are updated based on the productive hours in the rolling wave calendar.

You can also run the Advance Calendar process through the API and the Cobra Web Service.