Why are dependencies needed for the Smartsheet/RM integration

Philip Robbins

Hi community,

I'd be interested if anyone knows why the Smartsheet/Resource Management integration requires dependencies to be enabled on the sheet. I'm looking to build an integration where start and end dates are pulled via lookups, but you can't do this in the date columns used by RM when dependencies are enabled.

I'm not looking for a fix, but I'm curious as dependencies generates the Duration and Predecessors columns, neither of which are required for the RM integration.

Brian_Richardson

I'm not sure what the rationale is for this. @Genevieve P. do you have an internal contact on the RM team that could help understand this requirement? News to me but I do see in the documentation that it specifically says the sheet must be dependencies enabled. I don't think the Workload Tracking requires this, so it seems odd that RM does.

@Philip Robbins enabling dependencies also controls the Start Date. I'm not sure why RM would need that to be enabled though…it doesn't guarantee that all tasks have dependencies or start/finish/duration. It does rely also on % allocation but again enabling dependencies doesn't ensure that either.

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2482407-connect-project-sheet-resource-management

Genevieve P.

Hi @Philip Robbins, and thanks for the tag @Brian_Richardson!

I haven't connected yet with someone on the RM team but I'd be happy to explain from my personal knowledge/assumption.

Enabling Dependencies is how a sheet can then apply Duration using the Working Days/hours that are configured for that sheet, which then dictate Allocation.

Without Dependencies, Workload Tracking wouldn't be able to identify your "Working Days" for that sheet in order to see if someone has been allocated more hours than they should on an individual day. I hope that helps!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Philip Robbins

@Brian_Richardson thanks for your initial response and @Genevieve P. thanks for you follow-up.

As workload tracking exists within Smartsheet I understand how duration could play a part there. But the RM integration existed before WT and doesn't sync duration AFAIK (although I appreciate it could do in the back end).

If dependencies weren't required I'd have a pretty awesome scenario planning solution I could share. As it stands, it's only vaguely awesome 🙃

Brian_Richardson

@Genevieve P. my god you're fast!

Philip are you syncing to full RM app or using Workload Tracking?

RM has a working hours default set but I don’t know if the sheet working hours overrides that in a sync?

Philip Robbins

@Brian_Richardson I'm using full RM for this one. What I'm trying to do is pull start and finish dates from a separate sheet and sync them with RM. As a workaround I've reversed the lookup and am instead pulling project line information in based on the start and end date input, which has its limitations as the range might not be unique.

Brian_Richardson

Ok I did some testing, you have a couple of options to get the dates into your dependency-enabled sheet, but it requires either Data Mesh or Bridge addons to do so. If you have access to those (and I highly recommend both) then you can use either one. Data Mesh will be easier to setup as it has a UI to make the connections. Also a note that, if you have a lot of sheets to update sourcing from 1 source sheet of dates, Data Mesh can do 5 sheet updates at once…just CTRL-click the destination sheets that you want to use.

If you have a more complex scenario, then Bridge might be a better bet. Getting Bridge to do the updates depends heavily on your setup.

Philip Robbins

@Brian_Richardson from my work with the Smartsheet API I've found the Start and Finish fields to be immutable when dependencies are enabled. As this was a PoC for a client I had to be careful about what apps I used (despite having access to them all), but I'll test out DM anyway.

Per my original post, I'm not in dire need of a solution - I was more curious about an apparent constraint that didn't on the surface seem necessary. But I do appreciate the dialogue on it.

Brian_Richardson

You can use the API to update the Start date directly as long as the task is not driven by a predecessor. If a predecessor is in place, it will "successfully" update the row but the date will not actually change.

But I did some quick testing using API to update Start date on a dependency enabled sheet, and it does work if there's no predecessors on that row.

Philip Robbins

Okay that's interesting. I'm guessing the Duration and Finish can't be overwritten though, so I'd just have to accept a default duration and let the start date drive the finish. Thanks @Brian_Richardson.

Brian_Richardson

Duration can. Then End gets calculated.

Philip Robbins

Interesting. That's good to know for the future. Thanks @Brian_Richardson.