Duration populates off entered start/end dates

[#1]

Description - Have the duration populate off of entered start/end date instead of putting a start date and then putting a duration for an end date when you have a specific end date.

Why is this feature important to you -  I have specific start and end date(s), in order to put the exact end date I need I end up having to guess the duration for it to populate in the system.

How would you like the feature to work -  I would like to put the start date in as 2/26/2024 and then put the end date as 3/1/2024 and the system automatically populate the duration of 5 days.  This is a simple example where it's easy to know the duration between a Monday through Friday but when you are looking over the span of weeks/months having to populate the duration for it to have a specific end date I always have to guess the duration for the specific end date I need.

Current Behaviour - you put in the start date and the duration and it populates an end date.

[#2]

Hi @MeganBa1 - Have you tried using the "fixed dates" task constraint? You can add the task constraint in the task view on a project. If you change the task constraint, then you can just enter the exact start and end date (then the duration populates based off your entries).

Just mentioning in case it helps!

[#3]

Hi @VictoriaLinn 

Thanks for getting back to me!  This is helpful as it led me to be able to look more information up on it.  I think what I am looking for though would be the project as a whole be set up to whenever you add a new task it's the "fixed dates" automatically and not having to update the constraint of each individual task.  Is that possible to have fixed dates at the project level?  I haven't landed on it in my searching so far but maybe I just didn't get to it yet.

[#4]

Yeah, definitely hear you that there is room for improvement. Not sure if you're using a project template, but could preselect "fixed dates" on the template for it to carry through to the project and not have to manually set each line. 

[#5]

I've been asking for this for years. I think there should be a default constraint or a template/project setting that allows you to have a fixed constraint of ASAP. Then you could set the date without it changing to must start/finish on. Instead I have to change the duration several times until I get the date I want.