How to create a project template that can calculate dates forwards AND backwards?

Question

I am attempting to create a project-plan template that will ask the project manager for a 'product go-live' date, and it will then auto-populate dates for tasks that occur before this event (such as a kick-off call and product setup), but also auto-populate the dates for certain tasks that will happen after this date (such as monitoring the product & handing it off to a product owner). I'd like users to have flexibility to edit the length of the post go-live phase.

example:

The Project Manager determined beforehand that the Go live date is 8/1/24. Therefore:

Kick off call should occur 7/1/24
Product setup should start by 7/8/24
Go Live is 8/1/24
Monitoring product quality for the next 2-3 weeks (Flexible).
transition product to product owner after step 4 is complete.

If I use the 'projected completion date', then all tasks would be calculated based on the last task, which no longer gives users the flexibility to edit the length of this post go-live phase.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I could create a template that auto-calculates dates based on a specific date that happens mid-way through the project?

Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore · Accepted Answer

Hi @SanderDe,

I invite you to review our Get a Handle on Project Start Dates blog post, which might give you some ideas on how to use templates to "back into" the right Project Start Date.

Regards,

Doug

KristenS_WF · Answer

Would something like this work? The project schedule mode is Start Date (with the project start being well in advance of whenever a first task would need to start).

The Go Live task has a Fixed Dates constraint--with preceding tasks having the As Late As Possible constraint and subsequent tasks having the As Soon As Possible constraint (I used 10/1 for a go-live date in this example instead of 8/1 because we have some summer half-days in our schedule that made things look a little wonky).

I manually set the date for the Go Live task, but you could possibly have that value as a custom field which Fusion then uses to set the date.

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