Update Project Schedule Based on Manual Task Update

KGetchellTiffany

Hi! I have a Gantt chart that tracks all of the milestones and tasks for a project. I have predecessors and durations for each task setup based on the typical timeline of a project. However, often the customer will request a specific Finish date for a key task. We need to be able to enter that date (let's call it the Customer Deliverable Date) and then have all preceding tasks updated to show when those tasks need to be completed in order to meet the Customer Deliverable Date.

Right now, any manual change to a Start or Finish date removes the predecessors for that row and only updates the Start and Finish Dates that proceed that task, but does not update the preceding tasks that are required prior to that Customer Deliverable Date.

What am I missing here?

Thanks!

Kate

Georgie

Hi @KGetchellTiffany,

If a predecessor drives a task’s start or end date, changing the dates of that row will remove the predecessor and will not change the dates for preceding rows. You can find out more about predecessors here: Gantt View: Activate Dependencies and use Predecessors.

To change start/end dates and ensure that you keep the predecessor relationships, you could use lag/lead times in the predecessor column. For example, if row 4 has a predecessor of row 3, but you need to change the start date of row 4 to a date 3 days later than the finish date of row 3, you could add “3d” into the Lag box of row 4, resulting in the predecessor cell in row 4 displaying “3FS + 3d”. To enter lag/lead time, click the cell in the predecessor column for the relevant row and then click the pencil icon and you'll see a window where you can edit the predecessor relationship and enter lag time. More information on lag/lead time can be found in the “Edit a predecessor relationship” section of the article linked above.

Additionally, you may wish to set baselines on your sheet if you haven’t already - these could be used as the typical timeline of the project, and your Start and End date columns could be used as the actual start and finish dates for each task. For more on baselines, check out this help article: Set baselines on a project sheet.

Hope that helps!

Georgie