Schedule Data FAQ

What is the "Baseline Schedule" and what is it used for?
The baseline schedule is a commitment by the City to delivery a project and it should be a realistic schedule for project delivery. It is entered at the beginning of the fiscal year in which City staff begins work on the project (or as a new project is budgeted and scoped throughout the year) and should be based upon established project delivery and construction schedule estimating procedures. Once the baseline is set, it can only be changed by clicking "Baseline Reset Form" in CPMS. The baseline schedule is used by your City Service Area to measure on time delivery of CIP projects and is compared to a CIP Project's current schedule as part of the Quarterly CIP reports.

When am I supposed to lock my baseline schedule?

The baseline schedule should be locked at the time of award.

How do I enter my initial baseline schedule?

• If the project has a detail page in the published CIP budget, then a commitment has been made regarding the delivery schedule for the project. The initial baseline schedule must correspond to the dates in the detail page (dates in the detail page are by quarters so any dates that correspond to these quarters are fine); 

Note that this only applies to projects for which baseline schedules have not yet been established in the database. Once a baseline schedule has been established in the database, the database is used as the overriding schedule commitment and the detail page in subsequent budgets will reflect the current schedule for the project.

• If a project does not have a detail page, a schedule must be established jointly by the Owner and Implementation Departments prior to being entered into the database.
• Certain projects may fall into one of the above categories but also have special commitment dates to City Council or the general public. If these commitment dates conflict with the above, please refer to your CSA Delivery Team to determine an appropriate baseline schedule.

How do I change my baseline schedule?
Click on the base schedule change request form link on the schedule tab within the CIP database. Complete and submit the form to your Division Manager for consideration at your monthly CSA-CIP Project Delivery Meeting.

What is the difference between current and actual schedule?
The current schedule is you current projection into the future for your project schedule. The actual schedule column should be filled in when an event ACTUALLY OCCURS. The current and actual schedule may not be the same as the base schedule.

How often do I have to update my CURRENT schedule?
Database entries should be updated at a minimum of every 2 weeks. However, as a manager of the project, you should update the current schedule every time your current project schedule has a confirmed change.

As an example:
If you receive a call from a contractor requesting extra working days on a project, you would update the database after you perform your analysis and determine whether or not the current schedule is impacted. Once the analysis has been performed and you have confirmed that you have a new schedule for your project, this is the time when you would update the schedule.

How often do I have to update my ACTUAL schedule?
Every time a milestone is actually reached, the actual date should be placed in the database, irregardless of where this milestone falls on the calendar in comparison to the mandatory bi-weekly database update. For example, if City Council approves the award of a project on a Tuesday, you should update the actual award date in the database on that day, as opposed to waiting until Friday.

My project is being tracked as a "design only" project on the database. How do I use the schedule field?
For these projects, use ONLY the following 3 rows on the schedule tab:

• Start Date;
• Scope Completion Date;
• Beneficial Use (this will serve as the project AND design completion date – since they are one in the same)