have task planned completion date automatically match actual completion date when task marked off?

[KristenS_WF]

Hi All,

Most of our projects are launched from templates, where we have set durations for each task.  Because of the high volume of work and competing priorities for our department, it's not uncommon for folks to complete their tasks earlier than or later than the task planned completion date.  We like for planned and actual completion dates to match so that downstream teams have an accurate picture of when work is coming their way.

Up to this point, folks have been manually updating task durations so the dates match (we've preferred to this adjusting the dates themselves since that can change the task constraint--most of our tasks use the 'As soon as possible' constraint).

Sometimes folks forget to make the adjustments or get confused about how to make them (and things get more problematic if the upstream teams/users have failed to make their adjustments), and I wondered if it would be possible to automate the adjustments.  Has anyone tried creating an automation such as this, or does anyone have pointers for how to go about it?

Thanks.

[Rafal_Bainie]

this sounds a bit odd to me, if you want to have planned and actual dates aligned why do you bother and make double effort? isn't tracking one enough? 

having expressed my ignorance to your processess are you familiar with Actual date settings in Workfront:

that could allow you to easily match Actual Completion Date with Planned Completion Date.

Cheers 

Rafał

[KristenS_WF]

Thanks--I didn't know about this setting, but it does the reverse of what I want.  The setting adjusts the actual completion date to match the planned completion date.  What we need is for the actual completion date to remain 'Now' when the task is completed but for the planned completion date to change.

I think we're going to have to talk to a WF consultant about an automation.