So far, we’ve entered the status of a couple of deliverables, and checked the progress of their parents. Like deliverables, we can open the project page and check the status of the project.
The only real difference between the scheduling information of a project and that of deliverables, is that we also have the forecast for the completion date of the project.
There are 3 rows for the project. The first one is the planned values, including the planned finish, which is based on the planned schedule that is shown by faded bars in the chart. The second row is the current schedule, including the current scheduled finish, which considers all the actual values you’ve entered, and is the same as those visualized by the dark bars in the chart.
Basically, the planned finish value says that the project was supposed to be finished in that date, and then, the current scheduled finish says that based on what we’ve done so far, if we continue the rest of the project as planned, this would be the finish date.
Usually, the future performance of the project will be similar to its past performance rather than the plan, and that’s why the current scheduled finish is rarely realistic. The forecast assumes that the future will be similar to the past, and calculates a date that is probably more realistic. This calculation is very similar to the calculations in the Earned Schedule Method.