Start vs Finish Milestones

Start vs finish

• Start milestone: marks the beginning of a major stage.
• Finish milestone: marks the end of a major stage.

Default relationship type when linking to a milestone is finish-to-start (Professional start/finish milestone pages).

Zero duration / what they cannot hold

Professional start/finish milestone pages (same wording): a milestone may have a primary resource and expenses, but cannot have resource assignments, role assignments, or time-based costs such as labor. Documents/WP can be assigned.

EPPM "About Activity Types": duration of zero with no resource assignments.

EPPM Activity Type column / data dictionary: a primary resource or an activity owner, and expenses, can be assigned.

Write both. The consistent rule: zero duration; no TASKRSRC-style assignments / time-based labor. Primary resource / owner / expenses are allowed on the EPPM/Professional help pages above.

How they take actuals

Team Member (Oracle): when the entry is a milestone, mark complete and update the Started date for a start milestone, or the Finished date for a finish milestone.

Professional Status tab: Started checkbox writes actual start; Finished checkbox writes actual finish. That page is not milestone-specific.

XER stores TASK.act_start_date (Actual Start) and TASK.act_end_date (Actual Finish). Whether a start milestone writes only actual start, a finish milestone only actual finish, or both columns, is unverified against a live XER.

TASK.task_type stored codes are not in the Oracle column map. Unverified. Do not invent them.