Milestones and Key Dates
A milestone marks an important point in a plan: a delivery, approval, handoff, or other event worth tracking. In desktop Project, it is still a task record, so it can be placed in an outline and connected to other tasks.
Create a zero-duration milestone
Section titled “Create a zero-duration milestone”The quickest desktop method is:
- Open Task > Gantt Chart.
- Enter a task name in a new row, or select an existing task.
- Enter
0in the Duration field and press Enter.
Project automatically identifies a task with zero duration as a milestone and displays it with a milestone symbol on the Gantt Chart. This is different from a task with a positive duration that a user manually marks as a milestone.1
Project Plan 365 has a separate Task > Insert Milestone command; see its milestone-creation steps for that workflow.
Zero duration expresses an event point rather than a span of working time. A milestone can participate in task dependencies. Automatically scheduled milestones can drive or respond to linked tasks according to the dependency type and other scheduling settings. Manual scheduling and other project settings can change how the milestone moves and affects linked work.
Display a task with duration as a milestone
Section titled “Display a task with duration as a milestone”Some events take time to complete. An approval process, for example, may occupy a week even though the completed approval is the significant event. Project lets you select the task, open Task Information, choose Advanced, enter its duration, and check Mark task as milestone.
The task remains a normal scheduled task across its full duration, but the Gantt Chart shows a milestone symbol on its last day rather than a normal bar. The symbol is a display treatment; it does not convert the task into a zero-duration event or remove its scheduled work.1
External milestones
Section titled “External milestones”To track external work or a deliverable from another organization, create a milestone task in the current plan and monitor or update it manually.1
Milestones do not replace ordinary task logic. Use the milestone to identify the event, and use dependencies, durations, calendars, and assignments to model the work that leads to it.