How to Automate Date Forecasting and Task Dependencies

SiteFusion has tools which allow you to automatically forecast dates and allow tasks to start based on the completion of predecessor tasks. So if task “A” was estimated for 5 days, was delayed and changed to show 10 days, Task “B” will also be delayed. Task “B” can be adjust automatically as well any task tasks starting after that.

There are two tools which work side-by-side:
· Date Forecasting
· Predecessor Tasks

Watch this quick video for an overview

Date Forecasting: Task start is estimated automatically based on the estimated completion of its predecessors, the Lag you set, and have an estimated completion based on the Duration set by you. The forecasting only operates on the tasks which are checked, and all tasks which have a setting are checked by default. If you don’t want the dates of a task to be changed you can uncheck it before you run the tool.

Predecessor Tasks: A task can be setup to depend on the completion or start of other tasks. Unless these tasks are complete (or started) the subject task cannot be started. As you mark tasks started or complete, other tasks can automatically indicate they need to be started next. If you try to mark a task started before its predecessors allow, it will automatically reject your changes.

Predecessors are defined as one of four types:

• Finish-to-Start: Default setting. The successor task cannot begin until the predecessor task is completely finished.
• Start-to-Start: The successor task can begin any time after the predecessor begins, plus the lag. So if our lag is two days, the task begins two days after the predecessor is started.
• Finish-to-Finish: The successor task cannot finish until the predecessor task is finished. That means they can overlap, but unless you’ve completed this predecessor you cannot mark the subject task complete.
• Start-to-Finish: The predecessor task’s start date determines the finish date of the successor. The tasks may overlap but the successor cannot be finished until predecessor begins.

Notes:

• Automatic date estimating only functions for dates on tasks which are not complete.
• If an estimated date falls into the past, the date already there is not touched. So if a task is behind schedule and the estimated dates are no longer valid, the dates entered are used.