Fixed due and/or shipping dates

[LeighHa1]

Hello, I'm new to this group and relatively new to working with Marketing teams in Workfront. I'm curious to get feedback on how people handle a hard due date in the middle of a project. Do you use a Fixed Date and then change the task constraint to As Late As Possible up to that date and then As Soon As Possible for after the hard date? Thanks!

Leigh

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Leigh,

Yep, that's a great approach, and one I've used successfully, especially where the audience is also aware of, feeds (by regularly keeping % Complete updated), and monitors Workfront's Projected Dates. I perceive that Projected Dates may have fallen out of favor and off the radar over the years, but in my opinion, they're a powerful tool to help detect and correct schedule slippages (often just by "encouraging" good behavior from those responsible for tracking the % Complete and Open/In Progress/Closed progress of Tasks).

Good luck with it; and here are a few related links, for more reference:

+ Projected Completion Dates vs Planned

+ Overview of the Projected Completion Dates for projects, tasks, and issues

+ Get a Handle on Project Start Dates

Regards,

Doug

[LeighHa1]

Thank you, Doug. Much appreciated! The note on projected dates is helpful because I don't think people really understand how the system handles that, including myself :) I also run into a problem with users not wanting to assign predecessors and so then the timeline doesn't calculate correctly.

[JillAc]

Predecessors are the hardest thing to train, I have the same problem. 100% of my users prefer to must finish on the entire plan. I wish the interface was visual where each task was a box and you have to draw a line from task 1 to task 2 to connect them, i think it would make more sense to people than referring to a line number and duration, it feels too much like math and thinking.

[LeighHa1]

Jill, have you utilized the Gantt chart view? It doesn't give you a timeline (though I wish it would do that like Microsoft Project does) but does show a visual of the connection between the tasks.