Project Task Actual End Date

[jason_lau]

In most cases Project Portfolio works great for me.

The one challenge I have is when I need to update a project task that has completed in the past. When I do so, it sets the actual end date as 'today' but what I really want to do is mark the project task complete and have the actual start/end dates match the planned start/end dates unless I change it otherwise. is there a simple way to do this?

What I've been doing is marking the task as complete, and that's setting the actual end date as the current date/time, even though what I really mean to to is to mark that project task in the past as complete.

I'm sure it's a small thing I'm doing wrong there but it sure is frustrating seeing my project tasks slide all over the place due the actual end date being wrong and that pushing all of my dependent tasks out!!

Thanks,

Jason

[Shishir Srivast]

I think, you may get what dates are there in planned start/end dates and then have them assigned in actual start/end dates after updating the project task status to closed. How are you updating the project task status?

[jason_lau]

That's what I have to do now:

1. Set status to 'completed'

2. Go back in and update actual start/end dates

What I really want to do though is see if there's a setting, property, etc that will automatically set the actual start/end dates to the planned (for us lazy folks):

Desired state:

1. Set a past project task to complete - if it sees no set actual start/end dates it will default those to the planned start/end date

2. If I do need to have a different actual start/end date I should be able to set those while project is in a non-closed state, then set status to 'complete' and it shoudl use the provided values.

[Shishir Srivast]

Hi Jason,

I think you need to have script, as far as know that's not possible with some setting or property but can be done using scripting. I think you can have onSubmit() Client Script to update the actual start/end date accordingly.

function onSubmit() {

//Type appropriate comment here, and begin script below

var actual_start_val = g_form.getValue('work_start');

var actual_end_val = g_form.getValue('work_end');

var planned_start_val = g_form.getValue('planned_start_date');

var planned_end_val = g_form.getValue('planned_end_date');

if(g_form.getValue('state') == '3')

{

if(actual_start_val == planned_start_val)

g_form.setValue('work_start', planned_start_val);

else

g_form.setValue('work_start', actual_start_val);

if(actual_end_val == planned_end_val)

g_form.setValue('work_end', planned_end_val);

else

g_form.setValue('work_end', actual_end_val);

}

}

[ArunKRam · Accepted solution]

Hey Jason,

Before implementing what Shishir just mentioned, i think it will be a good idea to see if there is an OOB server side script which is populating the actual start and end date. As far as i know there are 2 UI actions , namely Start work and End Work which populates the actual start and end date. So if you want to deactivate the functionality, i think you should deactivate this server side code.

Arun