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Incremental Baselines & Dynamic Baseline Linking

adoosa · 2025-12-18T23:55:12+00:00

Problem: Current Limitations * Destructive Updates: Currently, snapping a baseline is a global action for the entire sheet. There is no way to baseline newly added scope (new tasks) without overwriting and erasing the historical variance data of the existing tasks. * Manual Data Entry: Users are forced to manually…

adoosa

Problem: Current Limitations

Destructive Updates: Currently, snapping a baseline is a global action for the entire sheet. There is no way to baseline newly added scope (new tasks) without overwriting and erasing the historical variance data of the existing tasks.
Manual Data Entry: Users are forced to manually copy/paste dates into "Baseline" columns for new tasks to integrate them into reports. This is tedious and prone to user error.
Static/Isolated Dates: Baseline dates are static snapshots that cannot be linked. There is no way to model "Baseline Dependencies" (e.g., if Baseline Task A moves, does it impact Baseline Task B?) or link baseline dates across sheets for program-level variance tracking.

Proposal: Smart Baseline Management

"Incremental Snap" Option: Introduce a feature to "Update Baseline for Selected Rows Only." This allows users to officially baseline new scope (Change Orders) without resetting the variance history for the rest of the project.
Auto-Baseline for New Scope: Provide a project setting to "Automatically set Baseline = Start Date" when a new task is created, ensuring the variance clock starts at 0 immediately for added scope.
Linkable Baseline Logic: Allow Baseline Start/Finish columns to be referenced in cross-sheet dependencies and formulas, enabling "Baseline Critical Path" analysis across multiple project sheets.

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Comments

Chase Evans

I searched before to try and find if someone had submitted a similar request but I came up blank, then I stumbled upon this. My desire was similar to your "linkable baseline logic" - though I don't want to just be able to link it, I would like the option (possibly through a toggle) for the baseline dates to be fully editable - whether thats manually inputting a new date, creating a formula, or linking to another row/sheet. Seems like a pretty reasonable ask to me!

My submission: https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/146933/gantt-chart-baseline-added-functionality?utm_source=community-share