Overview of the task Planned Start Date

Last update: July 26, 2022

CREATED FOR:

  • User

The Planned Start Date of a task is the date when you, as the task creator, decide that the work on the task should start. Planned task dates influence the dates and the timeline on the project. For information about the project Planned Start Date, see Overview of the project Planned Start Date.

The Planned Start Date of a task

You can either specify the Planned Start Date of a task, or you can leave it up to Adobe Workfront to calculate it depending on certain criteria.

Manually set the Planned Start Date of a task

Setting the Planned Start Date of a task depends on the type of Task Constraint you assign to the task.

You can manually set the Planned Start Date when creating a task, as described in the article Create tasks in a project.

You can manually specify the Planned Start Date when you select any of the following Task Constraints:

Task Constraint TypeEffect of Manually Changing the Planned Completion Date

Must Start On

Start No Earlier Than

Start No Later Than

The Planned Completion Date is adjusted in order to keep the Duration the same.
Fixed DatesThe Duration is adjusted in order to keep the Planned Completion Date the same.

How the Planned Start Date is calculated for a task

When it is calculated automatically by the system, the following can influence the Planned Start Date of a task:

  • The Start Date preference setting in the Tasks & Issues area in Setup

    Your Workfront or group administrator can determine whether a new task starts on the same date as the project’s Planned Start Date or on the day you create the task.

    For information about Tasks & Issues preferences, see Configure system-wide task and issue preferences.

  • Task Constraint

    For more information about Task Constraints, see the article Task Constraint overview

  • Task predecessor relationship

    For more information about task predecessors, see the article Overview of task predecessors.

  • Project Start Date, when the project is scheduled from Start Date.

  • The time off schedule of the Primary Assignee of the task.

    When the Primary Assignee has time off scheduled during the duration of the task, the planned dates of the task adjust accordingly when the Consider user time off in task durations setting is selected for the User Time Off field. New projects inherit this setting from the Project Preferences area, but you can edit the setting at the project level.

    For example, if a task with a Constraint of As Soon As Possible is scheduled to start on June 1 and complete on June 3, and the Primary Assignee has June 1 marked for Time-off, the task Planned Start Date becomes June 2.

    For information about the User Time Off preference, see the articles Configure system-wide project preferences or Edit projects.

When set automatically, the Planned Start Date is determined based on the following calculation:

Planned Start Date = Planned Completion Date - Task Duration

For example, if your task has a Completion Date of September 16 and a duration of 10 days, the Planned Start Date is September 6.

NOTE
The Update Type for the project must also be set to ‘Automatic and On Change’ or ‘Automatically’ in order for the Planned Hours and Duration to be automatically adjusted.
For more information about the Update Type, see the article Select the project Update Type.

More help on this topic

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