Using a Successor to Establish an End Date of a Predecessor

bdawson

I was curious if there is functionality to set an end date of a predecessor.

For example, say Task B is a meeting that can't take place until 30 days after Task A is completed. In addition, Task B is scheduled for 10/30/2023 and cannot be changed. I want to to set the End date of Task A to be 30 days prior. I do not want to make Task A a predecessor of Task B and put the start date of Task B as (End Date of Task A + 30 days), because I do not want the date of Task B to change. On a separate note, can you set predecessors with durations, but prevent the successor date from changing (freeze it)? Idea would be to somehow incorporate status into project health.

I am thinking this is not possible, and I should instead not make these two tasks dependent on each other. Instead I should add an additional column called complete by, manually set this Task A column to 30 days before the start date of Task B. Then I can automate project health using this complete by date, a project status item (completed, not started, etc), and current date. I could do a similar column for Would like to complete by Date. Then, I could project status would be yellow if the would like to complete by date has passed and the project status is not "complete". If the need to complete by date has passed and the project status is not "complete", it would flag it red, send an email, blow my house up, etc!

Hope this makes sense and thank you for any insights.

Ward.Hively

Hi BDawson,

Let me see if I can help with this one. It sure sounds like an interesting problem.

I think you’ve already figured out the solution. Due to the complex nature of project setup up setting and the predecessor/duration relationship, this can be tricky. Try creating a “phantom” sheet that exists in the background but directly mirrors the production sheet. Use cell linking to this formula so the formula can be used without disturbing the project setup settings.

Does this help any?

Warm regards,

Ward Hively

Skyway Consulting Co.