Task duration before another task

[JillAc]

Hi I'm sure this has been discussed but I can't find the thread so I'm going to put it out there again, I apologize for repeating a topic. I have Task A that must be done 5 days prior to Task B. There is no such thing as a -5 Duration, and I cannot find another task that I can tie Task A to that is hard and fast time-related to Task B. Task B is a "Must Finish On" date and never changes. Every other task in the project might move around based on many factors, all leading up to the final Task B. The person responsible for Task A is going crazy because her Due Dates are often incorrect, or sometimes wind up calculating to after Task B is complete. Task A is independent of all the other tasks, it's a separate "stream" that has no tasks waiting on it other than Task B. I can't make Task B a predecessor to Task A because every other task in the project is also on the march toward Task B in a much more direct way and those things are constantly changing, but Task A always has to be 5 days before Task B no matter what else in the project changes. Task A is kind of an orphan mostly unrelated to the rest of the project, time-wise. She has this same task on every project, so there are about 30 active projects at any moment that she needs to track to make sure Task A is done on the right day. How do other people manage this? Any clever ideas would be most welcome. Thanks! Jill Ackerman

[JasonMa]

I'm not going to lie, I feel like you could do this at some point. Maybe it was a fever dream, but I could have sworn in the past I had done a ss-xd type dependency and it worked. But I tested and it doesn't, which raises the question of whether it worked at some time. If there isn't a better way then this is the kind of thing that WF should be looking to do. Jason Maust McGuireWoods LLP

[KateHu]

(Fair warning, I haven't 100% thought this through, but ran across this question while looking for something else.) Could you create a 'placeholder' task assigned to a date that is five days sooner than Task B would need to be completed, then use that as a predecessor for Task B + 5 days as well as the completion due date of Task A? Kate Humber

[NRYNR]

If Task A has a finish-start predecessor of TASKBfs-5d, I think this gives you what you're looking for. Look at the screenshot below with the (2fs-5d) predecessor. Task A's planned completion date falls 5 business days prior to Task B, and is updated when Task B changes. Some documentation on this can be seen "https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/217186067-Understanding-Predecessors">here . Narayan Raum Workfront CoE Manager & Delivery Lead SunTrust Bank

[JillAc]

Narayan you are my hero. IT WORKS!! My life is 100% better this morning. Thank you.

[JasonMa]

So, when I tested earlier I put my two tasks at the start date of the project so it was unable to a "-xd" because a task can't be before the start date. I knew I wasn't crazy... In general, the minus days works but you have to put in the dependency type letters when creating it. To add to the other response, you can do other dependencies, for example Start-to-Start, which may work better for you. For example, if you do Finish-to-Start in that example and Task B is a 10 day task, you would need to do TaskBfs-15d. However, if you end up changing Task B to be 12 days long, then your Task A will only fall 3 days before the start of B unless you update the dependency. Depending on your scenario, Start-to-Start may work better. Jason Maust McGuireWoods LLP

[JillAc]

Jason you have added some complexity and good points. I haven't ventured into the different Start-Start types of things yet! We configure everything from Completion Date so I don't have the start date problem but I noticed that the durations are definitely part of the calculation and it does matter. Now I need to spend some time understanding these different scenarios. Thank you for the insight.

[JillAc]

Hi I've been testing this all day and FS does work for me in the template situation. However, I am noticing that when I apply this to an active project, it isn't counting Business Days (which is how we normally count duration by default) but it is counting including weekends and holidays that are pre-set. This is very weird. Is this true? Jill Ackerman

[JillAc]

I can't figure out how to delete my last comment. I am wrong, it's not counting weekends. I switched to FF and it worked. FS and SS weren't right and then I discovered FF and everything is all good. Thank you. I learned something new today! Jill Ackerman