Why won't dates import from Excel to the "Finish" field?

[JLP]

I am trying to import the finish dates that were updated on a spreadsheet by
the process owners. My WBS code exists on both the project and the
spreadsheet and is the merge key that I am using to update the finish dates.

The mapping exercise seems to work fine, and the dates that I expect to see
appear beside the WBS codes in the mapping wizard, but when I complete the
import, the dates are not updated in project.

How can I get the dates to update from the spreadsheet to the project?

 

[JLP]

By the way, I have already set the format of the dates in Project and the
format of the dates in Excel so that they are both the same.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Finish dates are calculated by Project as start plus duration.
Setting a finish date is translated by Project as Finish No Earlier Than,
not Must Finish On.

Hope this helps.

 

[JLP]

We are managing to milestones . .. which are zero day tasks. When we receive
updates from people, they are telling us which day the milestone is expected
to be reached, and if that changes, we need it to be able to update the plan
from the spreadsheet.

So how can we import from excel so that the milestone shows the new expected
complete date in Project?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Also import a column called Constraint Type and put it to Must Finish On
Then import the date in the column Constraint Date.
HTH

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Milestones are always zero duration tasks. As such the Start and Finish are
identical by definition. So instead of trying to update the finish field
with your imported revisions, try updating the Start field instead, Project
will add ) duration to it and set the Finish to follow suit. Milestones
mark a state transition in the project, the single point in time where some
condition switches from "false" to "true" - a report was not done and is now
complete, for example - but they don't tell you anything about what you need
to do in order to achieve that result. A project plan consisting only of
milestones is really nothing more than a to-do list with due dates and
doesn't give you much help organizing the actual work to insure it's done on
time. No offense intended but it seems like you're hunting flies with an
elephant gun here.