Task Start Date

[russellmcox]

My Project begins 2 months ago.
I have tasks that could have started prior to todays date and have slack time.
Because the task constraints default to ASAP, they currently show the start
dates that in theory could have been the actual start dates that are earlier
than today's date. But, since they were not started they cannot start prior
to todays date. I understand the situation, but people who are looking at the
gantt schedule do not.

I do not want to set the task constraint to ALAP, because this would obscure
the available slack time.

Is there any way to get tasks that have not started to show a "possible"
start date equal to the current date?

I know I could set the task constraints to "Start No Sooner Than...", but
that would require changing every task every day I (or someone elase) looks
at the project.

TIA,
Russell Cox

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Russell,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Try Tools/Tracking/Update Project.../Reschedule uncompleted work to start
after: and enter a date.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on )

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Build your schedule as if it hadn't started yet - ie, for the moment pretend
it's still 3 months ago. Save a baseline for tracking purposes - that
preserves what in theory you should have been doing for the debriefing
later. Then enter the actual dates work was done when it was done using the
tracking table or usage views. Enter it in the Actual Start, Actual Finish,
and/or Actual Work fields NOT the plain Start and Finish fields. It may look
at first glance like they're equivalent because when you enter in Actual
Start it updates the Start to reflect the same date but doing the entry in
one is not the same thing as entering in the other at all! Then as Mike
suggested, use the Reschedule Uncompleted Work tool to bring forward to a
realistic date the work that should have been done in the past but wasn't.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Not true - ASAP means as soone as possible after the project start date, not
the current date. The default placement of tasks to either the project
start date or the current date only applies to the date it will be scheduled
to start when it is first entered into the plan. Once it's there that
setting has no effect and tasks won't be rescheduled simply by opening the
file on a later date.