Milestones showing at start of next day vs. end of day

Vivian_Vivian · 08/16/23

I noticed a change in the milestone logic today, and I'm wondering if there's a way to revert back to how it was before or if there is something I'm missing.

Before today, a milestone (a task with 0 duration) would show that milestone occurs at the END of the day of the predecessor task. But now, it has the milestone task occurring at the BEGINNING of the next day.

This is how it appears now:

Before, row 5 would show a Start and Finish of 8/18, like here and here

I would like the milestones to appear at the end of the day like before. Does anyone know how to revert back to milestones appearing at the end of the day of the predecessor?

Genevieve P. · 08/21/23

Hi all (@Vivian_Vivian, @Jamila, @Tim Starkey, @Madeleine Kudritzki)

Just a note here to say that based on the numerous reports to Support of customer impact, this change has been rolled back to the previous Milestone behaviour: tasks that have 0 duration and start at the end of the day will stay at the end of the day instead of moving over to the next day.

Thank you,

Genevieve

Jamila · 08/17/23

I am experiencing this exact thing in all of our project sheets. It's affecting all my project end dates. Hoping to get an answer as well.

Joe Goetschel · 08/17/23

The logic looks correct to me. I must not have noticed how it was before.

If you want it to be on Friday the 18th, I would change the Predecessor from 4 to 3.

I do notice it's not affecting line 6 so that's good news.

Tim Starkey · 08/17/23

I am starting to get emails from our managers on this. Its impacting projects across our portfolio. Clearly a behavior has changed in the past days. We have had many schedules set for months, and suddenly they are being pushed out. Every 0 day duration in a schedule pushed to the next day. Cell history is tagging the change to me, but I am not in the sheets. I assume its because I am owner / system admin.

Can we get a confirmation that this was a change in the system logic?

I will also reach out to our support.

Tim Starkey · 08/17/23

I am working with support, and from what I can tell so far, this is a change in the milestone logic implemented on Tuesday evening (at least here in Phoenix)

Can anyone advise how this change interacts with other platforms? (MS Project, etc) Had they always put milestones the next day, and Smartsheet was an outlier? I am curious how this change will impact import/export to those other platforms with our clients.

Thanks!

Tim Starkey · 08/17/23

FWIW, looks like there was a discussion on this some years ago. Milestones were put at end of day back then.

Milestones not showing correctly in Report — Smartsheet Community

Vivian_Vivian · 08/17/23

Thank you for all these updates, Tim. I'm not aware of how other platforms, like MS Project, implement milestone logic.

Do we know why this change took place, and if this change is the new operating mode for the foreseeable future?

Tim Starkey · 08/17/23

Hi Vivian,

I just wrapped up with support on this topic, and was provided the following:

It was indeed implemented 8/15, and is an intentional update.

It is intended to be a permanent change. (I was told if it changes again in the future, users would be notified)

Reason for the change was to "update the logic of Start to Start dependencies so that a 0 duration task will still roll over the day if it depends on a task at the end of the day"

I haven't tested it with MS project yet... I do know that in the past import/export with MS project did occasionally vary by a day... maybe this change aligns Smartsheet with best practices? Anyways... sounds like it's here to stay!

Madeleine Kudritzki · 08/18/23

Hey Tim,

Thanks for providing Smartsheet's response. Have you figured out how you can do a same day task if the 0 duration no longer works?

Genevieve P. · 08/21/23

Hi all (@Vivian_Vivian, @Jamila, @Tim Starkey, @Madeleine Kudritzki)

Just a note here to say that based on the numerous reports to Support of customer impact, this change has been rolled back to the previous Milestone behaviour: tasks that have 0 duration and start at the end of the day will stay at the end of the day instead of moving over to the next day.

Thank you,

Genevieve

Tim Starkey · 08/21/23

Thanks for the update @Genevieve P. !

We were prepared to go either way.

Has Smartsheet tested how current milestone logic works with other platforms?

Alan H · 08/31/23

Has anyone had issues filtering by duration = 0 in reports this week. wondering if all the backend changes to milestones has broken the filtering function in reports.

Vivian_Vivian · 08/31/23

Hi @Alan H - I just did a test report filtering by 0 duration and did not see any issues. Sorry this is not more helpful!

Genevieve P. · 09/01/23

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/393517#Comment_393517

Hey @Alan H

The Support team received reports of this as well, they're investigating it.

Milestones showing at start of next day vs. end of day

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