Tracking variances between baseline and actual dates

Hello, I have copied a plan into Smartsheet from MS Project and have followed the instructions in https://www.smartsheet.com/blog/smartsheet-tips-tracking-baseline-schedule-variance to set up a means of tracking the variance between baseline and actual start and end dates. However the message # Invalid Data Type appears in the variance cell where I have put the formula.

As far as I understand Smartsheet (I am a new user) I have set the column settings correctly (date for date columns and text/number for the variance columns).

Any ideas, including pointing out the obvious, would be much appreciated!

Thank you

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Comments

TJ (Tracie) Peters

Hello!

It would help if you could copy the formula you're using or an example to view. Also, make sure your column property type is set to Date/Time in the appropriate columns. The formulas you use in SmartSheet are not necessarily the same as you would in Excel.

Have you seen these pages? They've been a huge help for me learning formulas: https://help.smartsheet.com/functions and https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2476171-create-and-edit-formulas-in-smartsheet

Keep us all updated!

Best regards, TJ

Karen.Lewis53776

Hi Tracie, thanks for responding. Yes indeed, it would have helped if I had posted the formula! I have now tracked down what I was doing wrong. I was using the DATEONLY function and thought that it applies to the whole formula, but it only applies to the [Start] column value, to eliminate the time part of the Date/time format. So, I was typing

=DATEONLY([Start Date]1 - [Planned Start]1)

instead of

=DATEONLY([Start Date]1) - [Planned Start]1

Grrrrr ....

Thanks again!

swh@dr

I am also trying to set this up and getting the same error. When I check the column types for Planned Start and Planned Finish, both are set to "Date" and not DATE/TIME. I only have the type "DATE" in my drop down.

My forumla is =DATEONLY([Start Date]2 - [Planned Start]2)

Please help!

Suzy

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