Task Start and End Date

[JulieHa]

Hi,

Wondering if there is an answer / solution for this:  When setting a Start Date for a Task and setting it to a date (i.e., Sep 9) - is there a way to set the the Due Date to the same Date (i.e., Sep 9), without using 0 Days as the Task Duration?  We had a template setup that was working this way, but now see that using the same template, it is pushing the Due Date to a day later.  Thoughts?  I.e., Start Date = 09/12/22 and Due Date should be 09/12/22 (but system is making the due date 09/13/22)

[skyehansen · Accepted solution]

As far as troubleshooting goes, the easiest place to start is by making sure the start and end times are within what your instance as defined as a day. If for example, your task was set to start at 10AM instead of 9AM, you might end up edging into the next day.

You often can't see start / end TIMES unless you create a view that specifies this formatting, or unless you go to the task itself and look in task details for this information.

[JulieHa]

Thank you so much!  I tried to create a view to show the time, but it isn't available (that I can see), but I could see planned start times on the Task Details.  Thank you again!

[skyehansen]

I think you'll find that if you select that column in your view and click on the Advanced Options link, it will provide you with a field format dropdown that you can use to select any of the available date+time combinations. For workflows that are constantly looking at the time, we make this view available to the users instead of whatever they get as standard out-of-box views.

[MichaelKMacsween]

Hi Skye,

That's a great catch, but it highlights a system function that can be troublesome, and I'd like to know if you have a workaround. Having the due time set by default to the time of day the user happens to be when they set the calendar date often leads to confusion when the duration pushes tasks past the expected date. We can train users to enter the time of day, of course, but it makes the process much more labour-intensive. Is there an option I'm unaware of to have task planned start/completion time default to a set time (say whatever the start/end of the default schedule is) and then allow the end user to override that with a specific time when they need one?

Cheers, and thanks again!
Michael

[skyehansen]

I'm sorry to say I don't know of any workaround. The majority of projects across Workfront are defaulted to look at the project's start date or end date and key off this project date.

Unfortunately, the project start or end date doesn't default to the start/end of the day, so times can be "off" from the time the project is created. Because of this, we recently implemented a Fusion scenario to automatically set our created projects to start at 9AM. It was easier than training all users to set their project times correctly.

I haven't looked for one, but there's likely to be an idea in the idea exchange asking for better functionality around this -- it's not an unusual complaint to hear.

[MichaelKMacsween]

That's what I expected, but glad to have it confirmed.

I like the Fusion approach and will do some digging to see if there's an idea exchange I can add a vote to.

Thanks Skye!

[mpaulick]

I'm having the same issue. It is considering 1 day as 24 hours, when in reality it should be 8 hours. Is there a way to change this?

[KimberlyHo]

We put the duration at .5d and then it works

[JulieHa]

Hi there - if I try to use .5 it tells me it's not allowed - is that a system setting?

[MelanieLynch]

I've noticed that it doesn't like numbers that start with a decimal.  So, instead of using .5d, use 0.5d and see if that works.