Using Anchor Dates to Drive Project Plans

An anchor date is a task or milestone in a project that is immovable and therefore dictates timing for the rest of the project.

1. Open the project in which you wish to add the anchor date in Power Grid view. Click on the Column icon to add the anchor date column to the Power Grid.
   
   
   
2. The Column menu opens. Select the Anchor Date option.
   
   
   
3. The Anchor Date column now appears in the columns. This column may be dragged and dropped to the right or left.
   
   
   
4. Input the date that the task or milestone must occur, then click the Anchor Date icon in the Anchor Date column to activate. Click the Save button to save changes. Note that each project may only have one anchor date, and that anchor dates may only be added or removed by Project Owners or Team Leads for this project.
   
   
   
5. Ensure that dependencies (the order in which tasks must be completed) and durations (the number of days that are allotted to complete a task) have been assigned, then switch into Critical Path view. The anchor task is denoted by the anchor icon. Click on the Update button to allow Office to auto-populate dates for this project plan.
   
   
   
   
6. The Update Timeline dialogue opens. Select the Yes button to update tasks with proposed dates, and click Save to proceed.
   
   
   
7. The Critical Path timeline updates. The anchor date has been used to calculate dates for tasks before and after the event. In this case, it's showing us with a start date of 4/5 and an end date of 5/11. This indicates that based on the duration added for each of these tasks, the project may begin on 4/5--by default, it would begin on today's date (in this case, 3/31), but this is the anchor date in action.