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Introduction to the Baselines Feature in OnePager

This article describes OnePager’s Baselines feature. The article covers the Add-in and Standalone editions of OnePager Pro, OnePager Express, and OnePager 360. Illustrations used in this article are from OnePager Pro but the feature's function, controls, and manual edits apply equally to OnePager Express and OnePager 360.

About Editing Baselines

Baseline property displays are driven by the baseline start and finish dates imported from the Microsoft Project source plan. Not every task bar/milestone symbol in a Microsoft Project source plan has designated baseline start and finish dates. A milestone symbols’ start and finish dates are usually the same. When you need to display baseline property information, it is essential that the associated data be properly represented in your source plan before the data are imported to OnePager.

Editing All Task/Milestone Baseline Properties

All task bars and milestone symbol baseline properties can be modified without changing the settings in the current Template Properties form by clicking the Chart Properties button on the OnePager Home ribbon tool bar tab in the Settings group. Next, navigate to either the Task Bars or Milestones tab as appropriate and ensure that the Baseline markers checkbox is checked ON as shown below:

Once the Baseline markers checkbox is checked ON, baselines can be customized by clicking the Baseline Properties button which accesses the Set baseline properties form shown here:

You can now edit baseline properties for task bars/milestone symbols using the Set Baseline Properties form.

Change Baseline Shape

The controls for changing the shape of the baseline are the same as for task bars/milestone symbols discussed in this article at: Changing Individual Task/Milestone Properties (Color, Shapes, Labels, etc.) 9.2.1-70

The baseline shapes available are the same as for task bars/milestone symbols as shown in the Set baseline properties form below:

There are numerous baseline shapes that can be selected. Use the scroll bar on the right of the dropdown list to make your selection. When the selection is made, either continue to make additional properties changes or click the OK button to get back to the Chart Properties form where all edits are applied.

Change Baseline Fill Pattern

In a fashion very similar to the way fill patterns are changed for task bars/milestone symbols, once again access the Set baseline properties form as before, navigate to the Use custom fills checkbox, check it ON to enable the dropdown, and use the associated dropdown list to make your selection as shown below:

When the selection is made, either continue to make additional properties changes or click the OK button to get back to the Chart Properties form where all changes can be applied.

Change Baseline Height Percentage

The Height percentage control is located just below the Baseline custom shape dropdown. This control, shown above, allows you to change the height of the baseline as a percentage of the total height of the parent task bar/milestone symbol (task and baseline information included). The default setting is 30 percent (%) and a portion of the chart with baselines checked ON looks like this:

Increasing this value makes the baseline taller (higher) with respect to the task bar/milestone symbol. To change the value, navigate to the Height percentage control in the Specify how to display baseline properties control group of the Set baseline properties form. Change the value with the controls provided. If you double the value to 60 percent, for example, the resulting baselines would look like this:

Change Baseline Transparency

The transparency control makes the baseline less transparent (opaque) when the value in the window of the form is decreased or as shown below where the value is set at its default of 0% (the baseline is highlighted in orange):

With this setting for transparency and baseline shape color, the chart portion looks like this:

When you need to make the baseline shape more transparent increase the percentage value as shown below where the value is increased to 60%:

With the transparency for the baseline set at 60%, the chart portion looks like this:

Change Baseline Color

You can also make the baseline any color different from the parent task bar/milestone symbol as we did above. To edit the color properties of the baseline follow these steps. Go to the same Set baseline properties form as described above. Check the Use custom color checkbox ON. Then, click the dropdown to access to the Color Chooser form as shown below:

Finally, select a desired color, for example, orange as used above. When the color is selected, the Color Chooser form closes and after clicking OK in the Set baseline properties form, the chart looks like this:

Connect Baselines and Actual Task Bars/Milestone Symbols

The Connecting Lines control group in the Set baseline properties form tells the OnePager whether you want to connect baseline shapes to their task bars with a line. This control group is shown below with its controls highlighted:

Check the Connect baselines and actuals checkbox ON to enable the control group and apply the default baseline connection settings. To change the color of the connecting line, check the Use custom color checkbox ON. Then, click the color window dropdown button to access the standard Color Chooser form. Making a selection changes the color of the connecting line. If you do not check this checkbox ON, OnePager uses the color of the task bar/milestone symbol as the color of the connecting line segments.

To change the type of line segment (solid, dotted, dashed, etc.), click the Line style dropdown button and make your selection. Finally, you can edit the width of the line by changing the value in the Line width control window.

Click OK on the Set baseline properties form click the OK button on the Chart Properties form to see the baselines connected to their current schedule task bars/milestone symbols as shown in the sample below:

In the sample above, two of the three orange baselines are connected to their respective task bars with a red dash-dot line that was widened to 2.0 to enhance visibility. The third baseline shown above does not display a connecting like because its finish date is within the start/finish dates boundaries of its task bar.

Showing Baseline Dates

Baseline start/finish dates are automatically imported by OnePager. The Baseline dates control group on the Set baseline properties form provides the controls for showing, positioning, and editing baseline dates near the baselines for a more detailed information of target dates:

By checking the Show start date and/or Show finish date ON you can select the date format that OnePager uses in annotating the baseline date, including whether or not to use the fiscal year. If you choose to show both start and finish dates the same date format is applied both.

The controls in this control group are very similar to the date controls associated with task bar/milestone symbol date labels as described in the article at: Labeling Task/Milestone Dates for OnePager Pro

A sample of the date formats from the Date format dropdown menu is shown here:

To specify the location of the baseline (date) label/text, relative to the baseline, use the dropdown menu shown below from the Baseline dates group:

Some care needs to be taken when determining the positions of baseline start/finish dates as the settings discussed here are global setting and may result in the baseline start/finish date label/text colliding with other label information on the chart. When these baseline start/finish date label/text collisions do occur they can be corrected by individual editing of the baseline properties associated with the offending tasks.

For more information on Editing individual task bar baseline properties, please see the section in the article at: Editing Individual Task/Milestone Baseline Properties 10.5.1-71

The Use fiscal year checkbox in the Baseline dates control group is an instruction, if checked ON, tells OnePager to show the displayed baseline date in the fiscal year format in coordination with the chart’s time axis. OnePager takes the action only if the time axis is, indeed, displaying the time axis in a fiscal year format. To edit the font properties for baseline start/finish dates, click the Date font dropdown button. This accesses the Font properties form. The controls in this form are the same as the controls for editing any label/text font in OnePager.

The Font properties form is shown below:

The chart below is an example of positioning baseline start and finish dates below the baseline:

Editing Individual Task/Milestone Baseline Properties

The default settings for displaying baseline information for individual task bars/milestone symbols can be edited by using the following steps:

Selecting Individual Task Bar or Bars

Before you can do so, you must confirm that the Baseline markers checkbox in either the Template Properties or Chart Properties form's Task Bars and/or Milestones tab is checked ON. You can select the task bar by right-clicking on it to access the task bar right-click context menu with the Format… command, right-clicking on the task bar name label, or click the Format… button on the OnePager Home ribbon tool bar tab after selecting the desired task bars/milestone symbols.

Accessing the Change Task/Milestone Properties Form

Using any of the available method to select, click the Format... command to access the Change Task/Milestone Properties form. Then, navigate to the Baselines tab in the Change Task/Milestone Properties form which looks like this:

Baseline Tab Editing Controls

The Baselines tab, shown above, controls the display of the baseline dates and connectors for the selected task bar/milestone symbol and the placement of the numeric label/text (dates) for baseline information. The Show Baseline checkbox allows you to turn ON and OFF the display of baseline information for the selected task bar/milestone symbol. When the Show Baseline checkbox is checked ON, you have the option to specify the display of the connector and the display of baseline start and baseline finish dates or both for the selected task bar/milestone symbol. When the Show Baseline Start Date checkbox is checked ON or when the Show Baseline Finish Date checkbox is checked ON (or both) you have access to control over the date positions and font properties as discussed above related to modifying all task bar/milestone symbol baseline information.

Use Baseline Defaults

Clicking the Use Baseline Defaults button in the Baselines tab of the Change Task/Milestone Properties form resets all format properties of the selected date label or labels back to the settings established in the Chart Properties form. The Use Baseline Defaults button looks like this:

Example

Below is an example of a single task bar’s baseline information modified:

The controls at the Baselines tab of the Change Task/Milestone Properties form for Show Baseline Start Date and Show Baseline Finish Date, that is, the Position and Font controls operate exactly as described for other start/finish date displays in OnePager.

For more information on Percent Complete tab of this form, please see the section of this article at: Percent complete for OnePager - Example 10.3.1-71

There are no controls available in the Baseline tab of the Change Task/Milestone Properties form to edit the properties of the connector line for an individually selected task bar/milestone symbol.

Related Link

Manual Editing Task/Milestone Shapes and Text Labels (Portal) 9.0.1-71

Changing Individual Task/Milestone Properties (Color, Shapes, Labels, etc.) 9.2.1-70

Labeling Task/Milestone Dates for OnePager 10.1.1-71

Percent complete for OnePager 10.3.1-71

Editing with the Chart Properties form (Portal) 21.0.1-71

Managing Templates (Portal) 24.0.1-71

(10.5.1-71)