Trying to back into a date and also use duration

Hi Lauren,

Before we look into disabling the dependencies, let's see if we can figure out how to get it working with your current settings, since using dependencies & duration will dictate your due date.

Open up your edit Project Settings window (by right-clicking on a column and selecting this option from the drop down menu). It should look like my screen capture below:

You will notice that the "Start date column" is Start Date (not the Open date), and my "End date column" is selected as the Due Date. If you have these two columns selected, then when you input the duration (ex. 5d or 5 days), then it will auto-fill in the Due Date from the actual Start Date.

You will want to check that your Working Days are selected properly in this Edit window, as Duration will take that into account (for example, 5 days will be 5 working days, and will return a date that is 5 working days after the date in the Start Date column).

If you are still having trouble, please screen capture this Edit Window and post it here so we can take a look. It would also be helpful to see a full screen capture of your sheet, but block out any sensitive data.

Thanks!

Genevieve

In that case, you would need to turn off Dependencies, because with this turned on you cannot have a formula in the Start Date column in order to auto-return a date.

You could use the "Duration" column for your own personal records, but not have it activated in your sheet. To change this, "Edit Project Settings" like in the screen capture above, then un-check the "Dependencies Enabled" box.

Then you can use a formula that adds that original Open Date + the days in your "Days From Open" column to automatically return the Start Date for your project. Enter this into your Start Date cell:

=[Open Date]@row + [Days from Open]@row

If you want to automatically return the Due Date based on that Start Date & your new, deactivated Duration column, you could use a formula like so:

=[Start Date]@row + Duration@row

Keep in mind that your Duration column would then need to be just a number column (so 5, instead of 5d). This would also add the exact days without taking work days or holidays into account. Would this be better for your purposes? 

Hi @lizwacoal

You're correct: you can either use Predecessors or a Formula in your date columns, but not both.

What I would suggest doing is use columns and a formula in helper, regular columns, then you can copy/paste the data into your actual Project Settings columns!

Cheers,

Genevieve