Maintain dependencies with manual date

Is it possible to have a task be dependent FS on another task, but manually change the start date?

I did this all the time in Project, and just realized in Smartsheet it is breaking the dependency when I try to put in a manual start date. I want to show on a gantt chart there is a dependency, even if the second task is not starting immediately. I don't want to have to calculate the lag and add it to the dependency.

Is this possible?

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Richard Rymill SBP

Hi Tolman

you can change the date of the initial task and the second one will follow because it is dependent on the first. You cannot do it the other way tound as if is not logical?

Hope that is what you meant?

Tolman

Do you see the attachment? I have one task that finishes on 8/13, I want the second to to start no earlier than the completion of task 1, but I don't want it to be immediate. I do not want to have to calculate the lag time, I just want to enter the date.

Say you had a task that was going to finish on the 8th, and then you had scheduled a review meeting on the 23rd. The review meeting should show as dependent on the gantt chart, but you don't want to have to auto schedule it and calculate including work days how much lag that is.

This is how I used Project, was hoping the same functionality would be here.

Is that clearer?

JamesR

When you use Dependencies you are switching from Manual scheduling to Autoscheduling as the depndencies drive the task and therefore the critical path as well. So the answer is unfortunalty no, you need to sdjust the Lag or lead.

Maarten Lindenbergh

Automating is good, as long as it can be overrided :-) Would be very much appreciated if this can be added as functionality.

My workaround: create additional rows, where you add milestones. These milestones are the dates on which tasks should start (see grey area).

When you now want to shift a task in time, while keeping the dependency in place, just shift the milestone to the desired date.

Added benefit; you can now have non-time critical dependencies, as requested by this post: https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/dependencies-time-between-items