Milestone Import File Format

To successfully import your data, the import file has be in comma delimited ASCII file format.

In the table that follows, an * indicates a required field.

In the Type column:

For more information on the table, see Import File Formats Legend.

Field Position

No. of Chars

Type

Field Content

1*

40

A

WBS ID must exist in the project. This field is mandatory except when you identify Milestones by ID and the record is for an existing milestone.

2

10

A

Milestone ID

3

1

A

Milestone Symbol — The symbols and their codes are listed below:

1 = Up arrow
2 = Down arrow
3 = Up triangle (default)
4 = Down triangle
5 = Square
6 = Octagon
7 = Diamond
8 = Hourglass
9 = Bowtie

NASA Symbols

A = Down triangle (NASA approved schedule)
B = Down triangle (contractor work schedule)

4

40

A

Milestone Description

5

8

N

Milestone Weight

6

9

A

Schedule Date

Valid Date Formats — See Creating Import Files for details.

This field is required when importing new milestones.

7

9

A

Forecast Date

8

1

Y/N

Is the milestone complete? If you enter Y, MPM sets percent complete to 100% during import.

9

3

N

Percent complete

You may enter up to three characters. A decimal place counts as one character — this field applies to EVM Milestone Weights and Milestone Weights with % Complete only. If you enter 100, MPM sets Milestone Complete to Y during import.

Each record must contain eight commas, one after each field except the last field (even those being left blank), and end with a carriage return.

Example Milestones Import

To illustrate how this import works, consider the following example, assuming:

And these are the current Milestone Settings:

Milestone ID

Status Date

Weight

Status Flag

Cum BCWP % Complete

1

JAN08

100

Y

25%

2

FEB08

100

N

25%

3

MAR08

100

Y

50%

4

APR08

100

N

 

Assume the February milestone had actually been completed in February but we had neglected to status it. It is erroneous to assume that all we have to do is import the February milestone with a Y flag and an As Of month of February. If we had done that, the results would have been as follows:

Milestone ID

Status Date

Weight

Status Flag

Cum BCWP % Complete

1

JAN08

100

Y

25%

2

FEB08

100

Y

75%

3

MAR08

100

Y

50%

4

APR08

100

N

 

Because the import evaluates ALL milestones with their current flag settings, the February cumulative BCWP will be too high because the system would interpret the March milestone as having been completed in February.

The correct way to resolve this situation would be:

  1. Manually change the March milestone flag back to N.

  2. Import the February milestone as Y with an As Of month of February with Update BCWP Status turned on.

  3. Manually reset the March milestone to Y then recalculate BCWP if you want to reflect the changes made to your milestones in your BCWP values.

Related Topics

Importing Milestones