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How can I use conditional formatting to make the completion date (due date) turn red when the task is past due? Thanks!

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Employee Advisor

@Linda Gonnella‚ If you open your report and select on the Due Date column, select Advanced Options in the top right. Scroll down to the Column Rules section and click on +Add Column Rule. Set your statement to read

When the: Task > Planned Completion Date > Less Than > $$TODAY

Then, choose red in the background drop down menu. Click Add Rule and then Save and Close your report. Keep in mind that your report should be filtering for incomplete tasks (Task Status > Not Equal > Complete) so only those that are incomplete and past due will show with a red background.

If you have any questions, let me know!

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Level 2

Nicole,

Actually, I want to apply this rule to my project, not a report. So when the task is completed at 100% (marked as done) the "red" text will revert back to black showing it isn't past due. Is there a way to do this?

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Employee Advisor

@Linda Gonnella‚ There's not currently a way to have an AND statement within a column rule -- task is incomplete AND past due. So, if your current rule looks just for overdue tasks (Planned Completion Date > Less Than > $$TODAY), the red won't go away when it's complete, because the Planned Completion Date still occurred in the past.

You could create a new view that filters specifically for incomplete task (Task Status > Not Equal > Complete) and then add the column rule to the Planned Completion Date column. That way, you can leverage this view to see incomplete AND past due tasks, but then switch back to your standard view to see the overall project timeline.

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Community Advisor

If you add multiple display rules to an object, the rules are applied from bottom to top. Use that to your advantage.

Even though you cannot use an AND statement in formatting rules, this hierarchy allows you to simulate (hack) OR statements and boolean statements as each rule is superceded by the one above it.

Simple example:

I want to highlight all tasks without a predecessor in red, but not parent tasks as they should not have a predecessor anyway.

I create a rule that says "If number of children greater than 0 then background is white"

Below that is a rule that says "If entered by ID is blank then color background red"

The result is:

Rule 1 (bottom rule): if there is no predecessor, the background turns red

Rule 2 (top rule): If it's a parent task turn background to white again

In your case, maybe you could say

Bottom rule: if task past due turn red

Top rule: If task complete turn black