Baselines

A baseline is a frozen snapshot of where your bars were at a point in time. Once captured, the baseline shows up as a thin ghost line under each current bar. Use baselines to answer “how did we get here?” — how much has the schedule shifted since we committed, and where did the slippage land?

Baselines are especially useful at the end of a planning cycle, before a replanning meeting, or when a stakeholder asks “what was the original plan?”

When to capture a baseline

Capture a baseline when the current dates represent a commitment you want to measure against later. Typical moments:

After the first round of planning, before execution starts.
At the start of each quarter or program increment.
Before a major re-plan, so you can compare old vs new.

You can capture multiple baselines over the life of a lens and switch between them.

What a baseline looks like

Once a baseline is active, each bar shows a thin horizontal indicator underneath representing the baseline’s original start-to-end range for that issue. The current bar is rendered full-color above it. Comparing the two tells you:

Aligned — current and baseline overlap. Nothing has shifted.
Pushed later — current bar sits to the right of the baseline. That issue has slipped.
Pulled earlier — current bar sits to the left. That issue was pulled in.
Resized — the current bar is longer or shorter than the baseline. Duration changed.

Issues that didn’t exist when the baseline was captured have no ghost line. Issues that have since been deleted don’t display anywhere.

Capture or switch baselines

Open the Gantt for your lens.
Open the Gantt’s Baselines menu in the toolbar.
Click Create new and give it a name (for example, “Q2 Commit” or “After replan Mar 15”).
The baseline is saved. Every current bar now shows a baseline indicator underneath.
Switch between saved baselines by picking one from the same menu.
To hide baseline indicators without deleting any, choose None.

What is captured

A baseline captures, per issue:

Start date
End (due) date

That’s enough to draw the ghost bar. Dependencies, assignees, and progress are not versioned in the baseline — only the date geometry.

Jira-based baselines

Instead of a one-off snapshot, you can point a baseline at custom Jira date fields. That turns the baseline into a live comparison against whichever fields hold your “original plan” dates (for example, Original Start and Original Due custom fields). Update the custom fields and the baseline shifts with them.

Tips

Label baselines clearly with the date or milestone they represent. “Baseline 2” is harder to reason about than “Q2 commit”.
Keep only the baselines you need. Too many baselines in the menu get confusing.
Baselines never modify Jira data — they’re snapshots in the lens.