Gantt View on Dashboard not starting at today's date

James Tontarski

Hello!

I have a report that summarizes deliverables from several sheets, with the information displayed in a Gantt view. On the Gantt Timescale Settings, the checkbox to open the view to today's date is checked.

I created a dashboard and have the report on it with the Report Widget. When I load the dashboard, it properly shows with the data starting on today's date.

The issue is when any other team member loads the dashboard, it shows starting at the date of the earliest task on the report. Is there a way to set it so it loads today's date as default? My first thought is to ask each viewer to check the box on the report Gantt Timescale Settings, but that seems too manual.

Thanks!

Jason Tarpinian

You are luckier than me! I have embedded reports with the "Open to today's date" checked and it never shows on the dashboards. Unfortunately, I just think this is an oversight on Smartsheet.

My workaround before has been creating a special helper column something like "Start Date (Dashboard)" =IF(Today()>[Start Date]@row, Today(), [Start Date]@row)

Use this then to embed a report (for the grid part, show the real Start date, but use the helper start date to create the gantt) on the dashboard. Then make the widget behavior open up the report with real start dates.

Jason Tarpinian

You are luckier than me! I have embedded reports with the "Open to today's date" checked and it never shows on the dashboards. Unfortunately, I just think this is an oversight on Smartsheet.

My workaround before has been creating a special helper column something like "Start Date (Dashboard)" =IF(Today()>[Start Date]@row, Today(), [Start Date]@row)

Use this then to embed a report (for the grid part, show the real Start date, but use the helper start date to create the gantt) on the dashboard. Then make the widget behavior open up the report with real start dates.

James Tontarski

Thank you Jason! That formula did the trick for opening on the correct date. It is unfortunate that it is making all the bars on the Gantt chart look like they only just started today, but that's the best we can get I suppose.

ShaunW

hi, so i have been on with smartsheet support and we found a workaround to this, the issue is that when you have a large date range although in the underlying report it will render to today's date (if chosen) for some reason if the end date is to far in the future and cannot be rendered on the report widget on the dashboard, the workaround is to adjust the Gantt timescale settings from weeks and days to quarters and months (primary and secondary headings) on the report, this will then show your report starting from todays date on the dashboard, not ideal but at least it works.

ZMinior

@Jason Tarpinian I have tried your solution above and got this result:

Am I missing something?

Jason Tarpinian

@ZMinior make sure that the column type is a date, that should get rid of the #ERROR.

caseygilbert

I am having this issue and it's been 2 years since this post was created. I would have hoped support would have fixed this issue by now. sigh creating a ticket