Question regarding lag times

Lainie Franklin

I am using predecessors in my spreadsheet and need some assistance with lag times. 

 

For example, one task is to sign the contract with the meeting planners (we do that in November)--that's line 12 in my sheet. Our first payment is not due to the planners until June of the following year. If I put line 12 in as the predecessor for the first payment, Smartsheet changes the dates of the payment due. I have to play with it quite a bit to get the right lag time recorded. Any help appreciated. 

 

Thanks so much!

 

Lainie 

J. Craig Williams

Lainie,

 

Predessor lead and lag times are discussed in this article:

http://help.smartsheet.com/customer/portal/articles/765727

 

If I understand correctly, you want the Payment Due date to be in the future, say 6 months.

 

In the Predecessor column, 

 

12FS + 26w 

 

will start the task when row 12 finishes ("12FS") in 26 weeks (6 months).

Smartsheet does not have months for predessors lags/leads so use weeks (13/weeks per 3 months). 

If you use the dialog box, it only accepts days.

 

Be aware that with Dependencies enabled, you cant use formulas in the Project Setting columns so getting the Payment Due date to be the first or last of the month (for example) six months from now is harder.

 

If that is what you are shooting for, there are work-arounds.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Craig