Feature Overview

A baseline is a deliverable that has been formally reviewed and approved at a key project milestone and then placed under controlled management. This process is called baselining.

The Project Baseline feature allows project managers to turn approved deliverables into baselines and provides baseline status reports to help teams clarify objectives, control changes, and monitor project progress, ensuring that the project moves forward as planned and achieves the expected outcomes.

Use Cases

• Lock project objectives at project initiation: When a project is launched, the project manager can create baselines for documents such as the Project Plan, Quality Assurance Plan, and Configuration Management Plan to define project scope, quality standards, and configuration management procedures. This helps the team and stakeholders reach alignment and reduces deviations during execution.
• Start development after requirements are frozen: The product manager can baseline the Requirements Specification to freeze the scope of the current version. The development team can then break down tasks and schedule work based on that baseline. This helps avoid frequent requirement changes during development and keeps iteration goals clear.
• Support change traceability and auditing: When major project deviations occur, teams can use baseline history to trace the root cause, such as a requirement change that delayed the schedule, which supports both auditing and project retrospectives.

I. Baseline feature configuration

Before using the baseline feature formally, first check whether the required baseline settings have been completed:

1. Go to Admin > Feature Switches > Baseline and check whether the baseline feature is enabled in the system.
2. Go to Admin > Project Workflow > Feature Switches > Baseline. The baseline feature can be enabled for Waterfall and Hybrid Waterfall projects. Baseline settings can be turned on or off separately for different project workflows, so first confirm that the target project workflow has the baseline feature enabled.
3. Go to Admin > Project Workflow > Review Workflow. A built-in review workflow is provided for baselines, and the default is the simplest approval flow. Before use, check whether the approval workflow meets your needs. If not, you can modify it or create a new review workflow.
4. Go to Admin > Project Workflow > Review Workflow > Checklist. A checklist can be configured for baseline reviews, and different checklists can be set for baselines under different project workflows based on business scenarios.
5. Go to Admin > Project Workflow > Deliverables. Because baselines are used to control deliverables, you should also check whether the required deliverables have been configured before using the baseline feature.
6. Go to Admin > People Management > Permissions / Project > Settings > Permissions and confirm that permissions for the baseline feature have been configured.

II. Create a baseline

Click Baseline > Create Baseline in the project to create a baseline for deliverables that have been approved or confirmed.

You can also go to Review > Start Review, select the Baseline Review type, and create a baseline for deliverables that have been approved or confirmed.

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The baseline name and version number are entered manually by the user.

The drop-down list for Configuration Item contains deliverables that have been approved or confirmed.

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III. Baseline review

When a baseline is initiated, the system starts the baseline review process according to the approval workflow configured for baseline reviews.

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During the review, reviewers will see the configured checklist items. If there are issues with the baseline content, they can record them in the checklist so that the baseline initiator can review and update them, and reviewers can also track issue progress more easily.

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After the review is approved, the baseline is created successfully, and the version number of the deliverable will be marked as baselined in both the deliverable list and the deliverable details page.

If the review is rejected, the user needs to revise the baseline information and resubmit the baseline review, or create the baseline again.

IV. Create a baseline when the project change feature is enabled

If the project workflow has Project Change enabled:

Click Baseline > Create Baseline in the project to create a baseline only for deliverables that have been approved or confirmed and have not been modified after review.

The Configuration Item drop-down list contains only deliverables that have been approved or confirmed and whose version status is Latest.

After you click Save, deliverables that are under review or whose baseline review has been approved will be frozen and cannot be edited or deleted. If the review is rejected, the deliverables are unfrozen and can be modified. After modification, they can go through review again and then be baselined again.

If a deliverable has already passed baseline review and later needs to be modified or extended, a project change must be initiated and approved before the deliverable can be changed. After the update is completed, creating a new baseline will freeze it again.

The freeze logic differs by deliverable type:

• Project Plan: After baselining, both the Project Plan deliverable and the project phases are frozen and cannot be added, deleted, or modified.
• Project Requirements Specification: After baselining, both the Project Requirements Specification deliverable and the project requirements are frozen and cannot be added, deleted, or modified.
• Design-type deliverables: After baselining, both the selected deliverable type and the related design items are frozen and cannot be added, deleted, or modified.
• Test-type deliverables: After baselining, test cases are not frozen.
• Documents and other deliverable types: After baselining, both the selected deliverable type and the submitted documents are frozen and cannot be deleted or modified.

V. Baseline comparison

If you want to see what has changed in a new baseline compared with a previous one, you can use the Baseline Compare feature.

Click Baseline Compare in the baseline list, select two baselines, and the system will show how Baseline 2 differs from Baseline 1.

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• Black indicates that the deliverable version is the same in both baselines.
• Green indicates that the deliverable does not exist in Baseline 1 but exists in Baseline 2.
• Red strikethrough indicates that the deliverable exists in Baseline 1 but does not exist in Baseline 2.
• Orange indicates that the deliverable exists in both baselines, but the version is different.

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You can click the button in the upper-left corner to show changed items only.

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VI. Baseline status report

The Baseline Status Report displays information such as approved baselines, baseline versions, configuration items and versions under each baseline, and issues identified during the baseline review process.

The baseline status report also supports export.

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VII. Baseline workflow

If you want to add fields or actions to the baseline feature, you can modify them in the baseline workflow.

If you want to modify the baseline feature across the entire system, go to Admin > Workflow > Baseline. If you want to modify the baseline feature for a specific project workflow only, go to Admin > Project Workflow > Workflow > Baseline.

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