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

[jason_lau]

Here's what I did: right, wrong or otherwise:

1. disabled OOB BR rule 'Set Close Data On Inactive' (on Project Task, not the one on Planned Task)

2. Duplicated that BR as 'Set Close Data On Inactive - CUSTOM'.

3. Updated 'Set Close Data On Inactive - CUSTOM' as follows:

Commented out:

//set actual work end and duration

// current.work_end = gs.nowDateTime();

// if (current.work_start.nil())  

// current.work_start = current.work_end;

Added:

if (!current.work_start) {

current.work_start = current.start_date;

}

if (!current.work_end) {

current.work_end = current.end_date;

}

Basically, when a project task (not rollup) is getting closed /inactivated, it sets the actual start/end date to the planned start/end date. That works from planning console with inline changes, so changing project status to closed-complete will close the task AS PLANNED. in the rare cases I need to update actuals, I can go back to the task and update the actuals. I WOULD HAVE TO DO THIS PREVIOUSLY since the actual start/end dates were defaulting to gs.nowDateTime(). GRRR! So annoying! Now at least I can review a project in a weekly meeting and close out project tasks as planned (by new default), or close them out as planned and then adjust accordingly. A big improvement!

I don't think client side scripting would work since the server side BR out of box would have reset the actuals.

Some caveats: yes, I had to modify an OOB BR. At least I disabled the original and updated a copy!