Change duration instead of dates?

[StephanieBr1]

Hi. I am creating a high level project plan on a project using tasks. I have been setting the start date of the task but then I would prefer to set the duration and have the end date calculate from the start date + the duration. Right now I am forced to guess and end date and it then calcs the duration. Is there a setting to make this work the way I want? Thanks for the help. Stephanie Brown NXT Capital

[SkyeHa]

my advice is that you take a closer look at the Task Constraint field. You sound like your task constraint is set to fixed dates, but the behavior you desire, you might be better off with one of the other constraints. A list of all of them can be found here: "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217297147-Task-Constraint-Overview" title="https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217297147-Task-Constraint-Overview">https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217297147-Task-Constraint-Overview for example, As Soon As Possible is one of the constraints that would calculate an end date based on your duration. -skye

[Heather_Kulbacki]

In addition to Skye's comment, you might want to create a View for your project task list that includes a column for Task Constraint. We encourage all our PMs to use such a view, so they can see what the constraint is set to for each task and how it changes depending on whether they change a date or a duration.

[MartyGa1]

It sounds like you have your project set to calculate from end date (schedule from .... Start Date, Completion Date), which will calculate backwards from the planned completion date. This will affect the default constraint on your project. If you are using predecessor relationships, you can use the duration and the initial start date of the first task, and the system will calculate the rest with a constraint of As Soon As Possible. If you set the schedule from Completion Date, all will calculate from the back end with a constraint of As Late As Possible. If you prefer to set each start date, you will override any predecessors, forcing the system to use a Must Start On constraint and calculate the completion date based on the duration. If you set a Planned Completion Date, it will force a Must End On constraint and calc the start date based on the duration. Setting both will force the duration, based on fixed date. Hope this helps. MG Marty Gawry - CapabilitySource

[SkyeHa]

I definitely agree with Heather on this. Your PMs should have determined as a group what they all need to keep track of when running their projects and create a view targetting all of these fields. For me it's predecessors, task constraints, priority, planned start/completion dates and status, but I know for others it differs. -skye

[VicAl]

Just to add to the pile : I completely agree with Skye and Heather.

[Christina_Jarosz]

I have a similar question - we've had a shift in direction and our director wants to empower the PMs to make changes our project plan. Essentially, she wants to be able to use the Fixed Dates functionally of being able to edit the Due On date and having the duration update accordingly (without the start on date changing) and still have the remainder of the project update accordingly (due to the change). The only way I can see how to do this is to change all of the task constraints to Fixed Dates / Effort Driven. However, what does that do to the rest of the tasks with predecessors? (ex. I updated task 17 but task 18 didn't move). Christina Jarosz Ascensus

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Christina, Predecessors are most useful where the dependent Tasks Constraints allow movement, such as the "As Soon As Possible" Task 20 in your example, which is being pushed to start on 2/21/19 by Task 18, which finishes later than 1/30/19 on Task 19 (which Task 20's other predecessor; ASAP correctly taking the later of the two). Conversely, non-movable Task Constraints will override the Predecessor directive, such as the "Must Finish On" 2/20/19 on Task 18, and the "Must Start On" 1/29/19 on Task 19. I suspect that in editing the End Date, Workfront is also automatically changing the Task Constraint to Must Finish On, which in turn then leads into these non-movable situations. Instead, if I'm following what your director is after, I invite you to consider leaving all Tasks as ASAP (so they can move) and instead instruct the PMs to edit a Task's duration to push to the new expected Planned Completion Date. Regards, Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore Got Skills? Lend a hand! https://community.workfront.com/participate/unanswered-threads

[VicAl]

Yes I completely agree with Doug. Fixing Dates is a big risk and will in fact override your Preds. So we either change the Duration or change the Start Date (which does still fix a date, but it should at least allow the successor tasks to move as desired). Our basic rule of thumb is: If the Task has already started - change the Duration to move the end date to the new desired date. This requires a little math and sometimes some tinkering to get the desired date. But if they're updating the plan regularly, it takes about 30 seconds. If the Task hasn't started - it's ok to move the Start Date. This will change the Task Constraint to Fixed Start, but that's ok because the predecessors on subsequent tasks will still roll off this task and move everything accordingly. It would be the "head of the snake" as they say.

[Christina_Jarosz]

Yes! Okay, so you're both agreeing with exactly the conclusion I was reaching. The challenge I'm facing is that they want the system to do the hard work for them, without having to manipulate anything but the dates . i.e. they don't want the PMs to have to tinker with the duration or change task constraints. They just want them to be able to say "Okay, this task that was starting on 02/07 and I had until 02/15 to finish I really am going to need until 02/28"....input 02/28 in the end date and let the system calculate the duration, change the constraint or update the remaining tasks accordingly. I don't think there's a way to accomplish this - I'm either going to lose the predecessor ability or sacrifice duration. Christina Jarosz Ascensus

[Heather_Kulbacki]

Have you looked at having the person assigned to the task change the Commit date (if your PMs are actually assigned to the tasks)? The assignee can go into the task and change the " This will be done by" date, the Project Owner then gets a notification that the assignee will be late (or early) and can adjust the duration or constraints as needed.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Oooh, now that is an interesting idea, Heather, A few years ago (thread 23 on "https://community.workfront.com/discussions/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?MessageKey=0a9d8b02-1f3e-4b61-af22-7d32e7f3b2e2&CommunityKey=aaafaff0-5e4e-4e38-8903-f1f990935567&tab=digestviewer#bm0a9d8b02-1f3e-4b61-af22-7d32e7f3b2e2">this post ), we enhanced our "http://store.atappstore.com/product/ubercalc/">UberCalc solution to automatically override (unwanted/inadvertent) Commit Dates "back" to their (official/reinforced) Planned Completion Dates (e.g. nightly), to ensure that Workers were aware of and aligned with the same timeline as the PM was intending. Following your "power to the Workers" suggestion, though, we could have UberCalc apply the reverse logic, automatically setting the (outdated/unrealistic) Planned Completion Date to match the (latest/human-confirmed) Commit Date, thereby keeping the PM (and owners, etc.) aware of what's most likely really going to happen. And (bonus) since UberCalc uses a filter to determine which Tasks to consider in each case, certain (top down) Projects could use the former approach, and other (grass roots) Projects could use the latter. In each case, it removes the manual grunt work of forever trying to "catch up" with the date changes, and instead simply presents the latest best known version of the truth. Regards, Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore Got Skills? Lend a hand! https://community.workfront.com/participate/unanswered-threads

[VicAl]

Yeah, you would lose pred ability. So I don't see a way to accomplish that in WF. But changing the Duration is barely more difficult than changing the date. You're just changing one field instead of the other. The only difference is you have to do a little math. Hopefully if the plans are kept up to date regularly, you're only moving the date by a few days or a week, so the math is easy. Just keeping in mind it's counting in Business days. Honestly I also hated this process at first. But once I did it, the reality is it's not difficult at all.

[StephanieBr1]

Thank you Heather. This was a super helpful recommendation and allowed me to achieve my end result. Stephanie Brown NXT Capital

[StephanieBr1]

Hi all - thank you very much for all of the replies. Adding the Task Constraint column to my view, as recommended by Heather, helped considerably as I was then able to modify the constraint as I went to achieve the desired results. As a follow up question - where are these Task Constraints originally coming from? When I start a new project and start adding tasks - is there a default somewhere on my project or in a template setup where this is defined globally for my project? Also, when I added the Task Constraint column to my view my constraints were initially all over the place - I kind of expected that since I hadn't modified them they would have all be set to one constraint? Thanks again for the help. Stephanie Stephanie Brown NXT Capital

[SkyeHa]

hi there, were you able to access the link I referenced above? Workfront Support wrote a lovely section on how constraints come to be. "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217297147-Task-Constraint-Overview" title="https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217297147-Task-Constraint-Overview">https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217297147-Task-Constraint-Overview Your task constraints will change themselves if you fiddle around with your dates for sure. For example, something cannot be set to "As soon as possible" AND have fixed start and end dates, so as soon as you change your dates, you will notice that the task constraint will automatically change to accommodate what it assumes was your intention. And yes, you should check your templates. Any task constraint on a templated task will carry over to the project. -skye

[StephanieBr1]

Thank you Skye. I had looked at your link previously but just reviewed the first chart the first time. I have now read through and you are correct - this is very helpful! Stephanie Brown NXT Capital