How to project a completion date with predecessors and durations

GinaC

I am building out Engineering project plans. I'd like to be able to pre-plan the work out by using predecessors and approximate durations. However, if the first line item in the plan does not yet have an end date the predecessors/duration will not calculate to give a projected end date for the project. I had a call with the ProDesk and it seems like it might not be possible if a predecessor does not have an end date. Any feedback/templates to try would be greatly appreciated!

Genevieve P.

Hi @GinaC

You're right, you would need to add in an estimated end date for the first task so that all the following tasks can populate with their estimated dates as well. If you don't know the first task end date, you could have all your dependencies be based off the second task, or a later one where you do have an end date you can flow off of.

What I would suggest doing is put in your ideal date for that first task. Then you can set these dates as a Baseline in this project sheet. This shows you what dates you had set at the beginning, then as the project moves forward you can manually adjust the real dates and compare it to your original goals.

See: Set Baselines on a Project Sheet and Keep Your Projects on Track with Baselines

Cheers!

Genevieve