Auto calc Deadline formula

[theintern]

Scenario: I'm importing tasks, including a bid date, from excel. The
deadline for each task is two days before the bid date. I generated that
formula and assigned it to "Finish 1". However, that column isn't a
determining factor when I level resources, so tasks are being completed after
their deadline, as shown in Finish 1, without any red flags, etc. I know on
the Advanced tab I can manually enter the deadline for a task, but is there a
way for it to assign the Finish 1 column to the Deadline column? Should I be
using a Deadline or a Finish No Later Than? When I use Deadline, it seems to
auto assign a Start No Later Than of (Deadline-duration), which I don't want.

Thanks in advance.

Scott

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

Sorry, the deadline is not something that you can use a formula for.
The best way to do this is to put a deadline milestone in with a lag of
negative two days from the bid date. That way if the bid date moves the
milestone will remain two days prior.

There are workarounds such as pasting links, but in this case the
traditional schedule dependencies should be sufficient for positioning the
deadline.

-Jack Dahlgren

 

[theintern]

Can you tell me how to do this? I can create a milestone by making the
duration of the task zero, but that isn't accurate. I even change that, to
make it a duration but mark it as a milestone, but i'm still unsure how to
program the deadline to have a lag of negative two days from the bid date.

thanks
scott

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

Insert a task. Name it accordingly maybe something like "deadline for
submitting bid". Set duration to 0. Drag a dependency from the bid date to
the new milestone.
double click on the dependency line (link) and set the lag to -2 days. You
can play around with the dependency type as well if you like. However since
it is going from a milestone to a milestone finish and start are identical so
all the link types will behave the same as long as the link is drawn in the
correct direction.

You could also make the deadline a predecessor to the bid date.

There are a number of different ways to connect it. It all depends on how
you want it to work.

-Jack Dahlgren