Overview
Creating a baseline of a project plan is used to track the variance of a project over its duration against the original plan - or baseline. There are three main actions available under the "Plan/Iteration" sub-menu in the "Baseline" menu inside plan manager when you have a plan checked out: Set, Clear, and Active. These actions are used to manage baselines for a plan. Each plan can have up to ten baselines.
Set
Use the Set action to create a baseline snapshot in one of the ten available baseline slots. This action will use the current date and hours settings to apply a blanket baseline to all tasks on the plan. From this point, any changes to any of the tasks' dates and hours will show in the "Baseline Variance" column as a variance against the baseline. Project Managers can create several baselines throughout the plan's lifespan to track how the plan changes after certain milestones or time spans.
Clear
Use the Clear action to delete a baseline snapshot from one of the ten available baseline slots on the plan. This action will remove any stored baseline in the slot and remove it from being "Active" if the baseline were set to be so.
Active
Use the Active action to switch between viewing different stored baselines if more than one baseline is stored on the plan. When creating the first baseline for a plan, it is automatically selected as "Active".
Task
The Task option under the "Baseline" menu will allow you to apply or clear a baseline to an individual task rather than the whole plan. However, if the baseline for the task is update to be outside of the bounds of the plan baseline, the plan's baseline will also be updated accordingly.