Don't reset start dates when copying tasks

[KirstenHe]

Does anyone know of a way to copy a task from one project to another without resetting the start date of the task? It's currently setting the start date of the task to the planned start date of the project. Kirsten Heikkinen Trek Bicycle Corporation

[SkyeHa]

What's triggering the task to do this is its task constraint. It's probably set to "As soon as possible". When you copy it from one project to another, the task constraint checks out your project's start date and changes to match. If you didn't want this happening, you would set the originating task's task constraint to force the date to stay. Off hand, try "fixed dates" or "must start on", for instance. "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 A different way to look at this might be that the task's start date doesn't really matter as long as you set it up with a predecessor. I often copy a task over and then set a predecessor on the task which dictates when the task can start. "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217186067-Understanding-Predecessors" title="https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217186067-Understanding-Predecessors">https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217186067-Understanding-Predecessors -skye

[KirstenHe]

Hey Skye - thanks for the response. I tried setting the task constraint on the original task to "Must Start On", but it still reset the date to the planned start date of the project I was copying to. The reason I want to keep the exact dates from the original task is because we have a list of 10 tasks that exist in project A with all the correct dates. We want to move those same tasks and their dates into project B. No matter what we try setting the task constraint to on the original task, the copied task in project B will inherit project B's planned start date. We don't want to set a predecessor while copying because the tasks we're copying over aren't reliant on the tasks already existing in project B, necessarily. Kirsten Heikkinen Trek Bicycle Corporation

[SkyeHa]

hi Kristen, I just ran a controlled test in my preview environment. Create Project 1, and create task named "test task" with Must Start On constraint. My Project 1 is set to schedule from a start date of 4/12. Create Project 2, and copy over test task in Project 1 to Project 2. I set my Project 2 to schedule from a start date of 4/1, just to see what would happen. The copy seems to work fine (I did another copy of a task with "Fixed Dates" constraint and that also works fine). There may be something else in your environment that isn't being mentioned, and is somehow affecting your tasks, but I honestly wouldn't know where to begin troubleshooting. But if you create a simple test in your environment and that works, then I would start scrutinizing your larger project more closely. PS: if it helps, I just ran a test task copy with a constraint of "ASAP" and this behaved as expected: it adjusted its date based on the project's start date. -skye

[KirstenHe]

Hey Skye - just tried using the "Fixed Dates" constraint instead of "Must Start On" before copying and that worked! Thanks! Kirsten Heikkinen Trek Bicycle Corporation