How to make the actual date earlier than the target date

VL0001

I have sheets built for a team of engineers and they have a list of milestones with target dates and actual dates. Occasionally they will complete milestones earlier than the target date. My sheet will not let me set the actual date earlier than the target date. It will allow the actual date to be the same as or later than the target date but not earlier.

Is there a way to fix this?

Georgie

Hi @VL0001,

It sounds like your Gantt sheet may be set up with dependencies enabled, with your Target date column set as the Start date column, and your Actual date column set as the End date column. To confirm if this is the case, right-click any column header and select Edit Project Settings - this window will look similar to below:

My recommendation would be to add in two End Date columns - one “Actual End Date” column and one “Target End Date” column, and adjust the names of your existing columns so that they’re named “Actual Start Date” and “Target Start Date”. You can then set the Start date and End date columns in your Project Settings to be the two Actual date columns so that these dates are dependent on each other. 

More information about Gantt charts and dependencies can be found here:

• Gantt Chart with Dependencies
• Activate dependencies and use predecessors in sheets

I’d also suggest adding Baselines to your sheet - these could be your target date columns, as they allow you to monitor the difference between planned and actual start and end dates. If you add Baselines, this will add the required columns to your sheet, so you wouldn’t need to have your Target Start Date and Target End Date columns. Take a look here for more information: Set baselines on a sheet.

Alternatively, you could disable dependencies in the sheet (by unchecking the Dependencies enabled box in the Project Settings window) so that you can adjust dates as desired and they aren’t dependent on each other.

Hope that helps!

Georgie