Merging new and changed data into existing baselines

Once you have baselined a project or view, you might add more detail to the project and want to include that detail in the original baseline. You can do this by merging the new information into an existing baseline.

When you merge data into a baseline, you should be certain that the project and the baseline correspond closely - ie that the baseline that you are merging into is based on the project. This is the case in the vast majority of cases. However, if you have imported a project as a baseline, it is possible that the resulting baseline will be sufficiently different to the project to mean that merging information into the baseline would result in errors. These errors can be due to an internal ID in the project being assigned to one type of object and the same ID being assigned to a different type of object in the baseline. For this reason, a warning appears if you attempt to merge data into a baseline that has been imported.

To merge new and changed data into a baseline:

Display a view containing the new and changed data that you want to merge into an existing baseline. If you want to merge new and changed data throughout the whole project, you must display the chart that represents the programme. To merge only certain tasks, select the tasks that you want to merge.

If you have associated different baselines with individual projects within a portfolio, see the section below for details of how to merge new and changed data into a project baseline.
On the Project tab, in the Properties group, click Baseline Manager. The Baseline/What If Manager dialog appears.
Select the baseline into which you want to merge new and changed data.
Click Merge. The Details screen of the Baseline Wizard appears.
Edit the description of the baseline if required, then click Next. The Scope screen appears.
If you selected specific tasks before accessing the Baseline Wizard, specify whether you want to merge all of the tasks in the current view, or the selected tasks only.
Specify the way in which you want to update the baseline with new and changed data:

Click Add new data only to update the baseline with tasks and allocations that have been added to the project since the baseline was last updated.
Click Add new data and edit existing data to update the baseline with tasks and allocations that have been added to the project since the baseline was last updated and to update tasks and allocations that already exist in the baseline with information that has changed since the baseline was last updated.
Click Full update to update the baseline with all changes that have been made since it was last updated, including deleting tasks and allocations from the baseline where they have been deleted from the project.

Click Make a backup of the baseline if you want to make a copy of the existing baseline before merging new and changed data into it. Note that you cannot back up baselines that have been imported into the project.
Click Next. The Summary screen appears. This screen displays an overview of what you have chosen to do. If you are happy with the details displayed on the screen, click Finish to merge new and changed data into the baseline.

When you merge new and changed data into a baseline, if the baseline is already displayed in the bar chart, the newly merged tasks are displayed automatically.

Merging new and changed data into project baselines

If you have associated different baselines with individual projects within a portfolio - these are known as 'project baselines' - and you wish to update a project baseline, you should access the Baseline Wizard from the project's Chart/Project Properties dialog rather than from the Baseline/What If Manager dialog. Accessing the Baseline Wizard in this way automatically limits the scope of the baseline merge to data that is contained within the selected project - and within any subprojects that have the same project baseline or that do not have a project baseline specified.

To merge new and changed data into a project baseline:

Right-click the chart or summary group icon in the project view that represents a project and select Properties. The Chart/Project Properties dialog appears.
Click the Project tab.
Check that the project baseline is specified in the Project Baseline field, then click Baseline Merge. The Baseline Wizard appears.
Follow the steps in the wizard to merge new and changed data into the selected project baseline.

Note that you cannot choose to make a backup of the baseline when you merge new and changed data into it in this way.