Start Date Autofilled by End Date and Duration

I'm building a construction schedule for cabinetry across multiple projects my company has going. Is there a way to dictate a start date, date the vendor needs to start working, by the known building/finishing time and the end date, date they need to be on site. I.E. I'd like to put in the end date: 1/22/18 and a duration of 40 days and have it autofill that the start date should be 11/28/17. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Eric S

Hi Ben, I am also looking for this answer. Thanks,

L_123

Use the "Basic Project with Gantt & Dependencies" template. Delete all the information they have. Fill out the task name first, then put the end date. Then start building your dependencies backwards.

J. Craig Williams

This thread may help:

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/setting-project-due-date-then-building-tasks-predecessors-leading-it-not-working-right

General Tips (assuming Dependencies enabled)

1. Predecessors determine start or end dates (but not both in Smartsheet)

2. Without a Predecessors, task will fill in in the order you enter the data. If you have a blank row, the system needs 3 pieces of info to function - start date, finish date, duration

a. enter Start or End Date - auto-fills the other two (duration=1d)

b. enter Duration - no auto-fill

If 2b, then entering Start or End date will auto-fill the other. For a two day task entering either start date of 7/5 or end date of 7/6 results in the same data in the row.

c. with all 3 data entered then deleting Duration will delete End Date

d. with all 3 data entered then deleting Start or End Date will delete Duration

I hope that helps.

Craig

Ben H.

Figured it out and it was actually really easy. Thanks for the help.

Aaron S.

I'm using a Gantt chart to build a Client Decision List with built-in ordering lead times as a PM where none of the tasks on my sheet are related. For each task, my Finish Date is determined (date material needed on site) and my duration is determined (ordering lead time required), but I need my Start Date (when to order) to be determined by (and change along with) my Finish Date as the project runs ahead or behind schedule. Following directions above, I can input the Finish Date and Duration first, which determines the Start Date initially, but if I change the Finish Date, the duration will change, and not the Start Date. If I change the Duration, the Finish Date moves, the Start Date seems immovable. I'd like to be able to link the Finish Date cell to a cell in my Project Schedule to automatically update my Start Date based on the updated schedule. Any help?

nickig

you want a work-back schedule. use this help doc: https://www.smartsheet.com/blog/support-tip-work-back-schedule