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Hi ben1984,

In Smartsheet, the Critical Path only highlights tasks that directly control the project’s finish date. Based on how your schedule is structured, the behavior you’re seeing is typically expected and usually points to how the task logic is set up rather than an issue with the feature itself.

1. Early Tasks Are Not Driving the Project Finish

Even though the schedule begins earlier, the initial tasks likely have float (slack) because:

• They are not fully linked (via predecessors) to the tasks that determine the final completion date, or
• There is a longer parallel path later in the schedule that is ultimately driving the project end date.

Smartsheet will only show the critical path starting at the point where tasks first have zero slack.

2. Missing or Broken Predecessor Links

Often, tasks appear sequential on the Gantt chart but are not actually connected through dependencies. If an early task:

• Has no predecessor, or
• Is linked to a summary row instead of another task row,

it will not be included in the critical path calculation.

3. Summary Rows Do Not Carry the Critical Path

Critical Path is calculated only at the task level. Summary rows are used for rollups and organization, but they do not participate in dependency logic. If early work is grouped under summaries without task-to-task dependencies continuing forward, the critical path will appear to start later.

4. Constraints or Manually Entered Dates

Manually entered start or finish dates, or date constraints, can override dependency logic and introduce float. This can prevent otherwise sequential tasks from being flagged as critical.

Recommended Next Steps

To troubleshoot, I’d suggest:

• Verifying all early tasks are connected with task-to-task predecessors through to the final milestone
• Avoiding dependencies tied to summary rows
• Adding the Slack column to confirm which tasks truly have zero float
• Reviewing and removing unnecessary manual date constraints

Key takeaway: The critical path isn’t missing—it’s starting where Smartsheet determines the schedule actually becomes constrained. Once the dependency chain is fully connected, the critical path should extend back toward the beginning of the project.