Auto populated task dates

[Elledge]

I just started with a company that already has templates in place for what we do.  I am new to WF but learning quickly.  One of my main issues is the auto-populated dates on certain templates.  One example is when I convert using the template, it will have some dates 2 weeks in the past. I'm hoping to figure out a solution to this without recreating the template.

Also, there are the initial PM tasks that I would like to always show as "today's" date...the date it was converted to a project and assigned.

I'm still fairly new so I hope my terminology isn't too newbie.

Thanks

James

[Heather_Kulbacki]

The first thing that comes to my mind is the template's "Scheduled From" setting. If you go into the More menu > edit, on your templates are they "Scheduled From" start date or completion date? We've tried our templates both ways and did have a lot of tasks scheduled in the past when scheduling from completion date if there wasn't enough time for all the tasks between today and that completion date. Adjusting task durations will bring those past dates current.

But also be sure you have a column on your project that shows the constraints so you know how the dates are adjusting. I'm always amazed that this isn't part of the standard view on project tasks.