One Task with multiple Predecessors

Christian

Hello,

New to SmartSheet.

Question is,

I am working backwards, and i have one Task (Task 3) with four Predecessors. These four Predecessors end up having different Start dates. Task 3 ends up having an End date of the Predecessor with the shortest Duration. Shouldn't Task 3 have an End date of the Predecessor with the longest duration?

Attached is an image from the chart.

Any help is appreciated.

Thank you

J. Craig Williams

Christian,

The predecessor relationship has nothing to do with Duration, DIRECTLY. It is only concerned with Start and End Dates.

Your four preds has SF -- Start to Finish. This means that task 3 ("Steel" can not finish until all four preds have started*. At that point (the start of task 7), it can finish. Working backwards (with its Duration), will determine it's start date.

I hope this helps.

Craig

* SF is also means that the four preds must start before task 3 is finished, but since the project is working backwards, the way we think about the SF pred is a bit different, but the logic remains the same.

 

 

CanadaJim

I understand what you're after, Christian, that if you have a key task with SF against 4 tasks, each which has a different start date, then the key task must finish before any and all of the 4 tasks start.  However, Craig is right that the formal SF logic says that the predecessor must start before the task is finished.

To get what you are looking for (and Craig, I know this isn't your preferred method) you can group the four tasks under a parent, and then make your dependency against the parent.

Jim

Christian

Craig, thank you for your response. However, Jim's instruction's did the trick. Since these four task all take place in of of my shops, I was able to use a parent, and named it after the Shop supervisor. Then I can minimize, to ease up on the chart clutter.

Thank you all again.