What happened to my critical path?!

JessieD

Good morning Ss Community!

I found some great answers, especially to this question: Why don't I see the critical path? — Smartsheet Community so I have already tried some of those suggestions:
* sort by Start Date for chronological list of tasks helped the view but didn't fix my issue (see below for details)
* task spans the entire project that should be broken into parent/child tasks until that task is no longer on the critical path — That task was intended as a placeholder or title so I'm not sure how best to break up that task; maybe I just need to change its level until I can delete it? Also, Feel free make any other suggestions that could improve this tracker.

The issue: The last time I was in Ss, I had a small critical path with only a few tasks (just enough to make sure I was doing it right) but when I went in today to fill in gaps, that critical path has disappeared and the today's critical path contains completely different tasks. I assume this is due to new tasks being entered with dependencies that did not connect to what I had previously; fine. How do I rebuild the critical path? Is it possible to lock the path?

The attachment is zoomed in to show as much of the project time as possibe; unfortunately, it makes the indiviual tasks illegible.

Any guidance is appreciated

Smartsheet Screenshot 2024-10-15 114949.png

Thanks,

Jessie D (London ON)

Yvonne Smythe

The picture is very grainy. Here's what I would do to test a few hypotheses:

Make a copy, ensure the decency column is enabled.

Zero the milestone durations.

Each change check if the critical path returns.

Hope this helps.

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/765727-enabling-dependencies-using-predecessors

Yvonne Smythe

Hi @JessieD - I would suggest making a copy, changing the levels, and reviewing the predecessor rules on the back end (if you haven’t already done so). 🙂

JessieD

Thanks @YveNigma !

Can you break that down for me a bit more? Do I need to review the predecessor rules each time I change a level?

I was confident that the issue lies with the predecessor rules but I wasn't sure how to proceed. Thanks again :)

Yvonne Smythe

The picture is very grainy. Here's what I would do to test a few hypotheses:

Make a copy, ensure the decency column is enabled.

Zero the milestone durations.

Each change check if the critical path returns.

Hope this helps.

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/765727-enabling-dependencies-using-predecessors

JessieD

Thank you so much @YveNigma!!

You sent me on the right path, which showed me that the dependency/predecessors got lost when someone else was making edits.

Now to fix it up again 😐️