Planned Project Dates not working as expected.

[Bob20]

I'm puzzled by how ServiceNow handles planned dates in projects... The math and how dates relate to tasks is understood. What I do not understand is the philosophy of why planned dates change at all. If I have a project in MS project, build my tasks, set my baseline, the planned dates remain the same as I progress through the project. The planned dates are locked and used for deviation. In ServiceNow, if I have a project with a planned end date of May 31 and my last task runs late, the planned end date of the task and the project is pushed back, losing the deviation information.... Or am I thinking about this incorrectly?

Also if I have a task and the work has been completed and I'm a bit late closing the task in SN, when use the calendar setting the Actual End Date, and I set the task as Closed Complete, I would expect that the Actual Closed Date to be the one I set, not the date (today's date) when I clicked "Update" on the Task record. For example, If I had a task with an Actual Start Date of April 1 and a Planned End Date of April 7, and the Actual Completed Date is April 8, but I do not get a chance to update my Task record as closed until April 12, then, even if I set the Closed Date to April 8, the Actual Close Date is reset to April 12. This is somewhat unexpected behavior. When I set the date with the calendar, that's the date SN should use for the Closed Date field (then check if it's valid).

Thanks for your input.

[Earl L]

Bob,

No solid insight here, but curious if you're using baselines in SN? I haven't tried using them yet and curious if they'll help with this situation. I'm seeing the same kind of thing with my projects that you are and would like to get to a stable/manageable procedure to do project updates.

Earl

[Bob20]

Earl,

From what I have seen setting a Baseline does not appear to have an effect on the planned dates for both the project and the tasks. I would expect that the planned dates remain set, unchanging as the plan progresses. Only the Actual dates should change. How else might I tell if my project is running behind or not? However, as I asked, am I thinking about this incorrectly?

[Earl L]

I don't believe that you're thinking about it incorrectly. It wouldn't be surprising to me that certain business rules have been built into the PPM apps that don't really line up with real world practices. I've seen some wonky things in the SN platform. Things that make you say "hmmmmm...."

With that said, not sure if you're aware of this but SN just announced an product lab, a place for users to help shape the future direction of specific features of the platform. Might be a good place to go and make your voice heard.

Join The New ServiceNow Product Lab

Earl

[kellykaufmann]

Hi Bob

I think this thread has the information you are looking for: Project Scheduling Engine

Planned End Date

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For a project or for a task in the project, the planned end date is calculated using the following formula:

Planned End Date = Planned Start Date + Planned Duration

This formula is applicable only when the task or the project is in the pending or the open state. When the task moves to the work in progress state, the actual start date gets populated. For a task that is in the work in progress or the closed state, the planned end date is calculated using the following formula:

Planned End Date = Actual Start Date + Planned Duration