I suspect the OpenSched would attempt to determine the start/finish dates of task based on dependicies and resource assignments. Any dates entered generally would be used to adjust these start/finish calculations.
start: This forces OpenSched to use this date as the start date. This may result in a non-optimal schedule, for example and dependicies now must finish before this date and other tasks that depend on this task cannot start unitl after this date. I would suggest probably best to let OpenSched determine the schedule.
astart: This is the date the task actually started on. This date would be useful as it could be used in various reports to determine slippage and would probably be compared againist the baseline. This date may cause you project end-date to be adjusted (say if you started earlier or later than originally scheduled). Unless you are baseline the project, this is probably the only date you really need to worry about.
bstart: Once you have generated schedule for you project, you should "baseline" the project. This baseline schedule would be used to determine slippage or if you are ahead of schedule. So this date would be the baseline date for that task.
Note, I haven't tried this yet, but to baseline a project I guess you would use the "hardscedule" directive in your sched file. This would output start/finish dates which you could use input for baseline date.
Hope this helps.
Michael.
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Whats the difference between start, astart and bstart?
This is my understanding:
I suspect the OpenSched would attempt to determine the start/finish dates of task based on dependicies and resource assignments. Any dates entered generally would be used to adjust these start/finish calculations.
start: This forces OpenSched to use this date as the start date. This may result in a non-optimal schedule, for example and dependicies now must finish before this date and other tasks that depend on this task cannot start unitl after this date. I would suggest probably best to let OpenSched determine the schedule.
astart: This is the date the task actually started on. This date would be useful as it could be used in various reports to determine slippage and would probably be compared againist the baseline. This date may cause you project end-date to be adjusted (say if you started earlier or later than originally scheduled). Unless you are baseline the project, this is probably the only date you really need to worry about.
bstart: Once you have generated schedule for you project, you should "baseline" the project. This baseline schedule would be used to determine slippage or if you are ahead of schedule. So this date would be the baseline date for that task.
Note, I haven't tried this yet, but to baseline a project I guess you would use the "hardscedule" directive in your sched file. This would output start/finish dates which you could use input for baseline date.
Hope this helps.
Michael.