Start ASAP vs Specific Date on Project Import

[Uncle Rob]

From Docs article on project import....

"Time constraints: The Project Management application Start ASAP and Start on specific date constraints. The application sets the time constraint for imported tasks to Start on specific date if their Microsoft Project time constraint is Must Start On. All other imported Microsoft Project time constraints are set to Start ASAP."

Is this legacy, or still reliable?  I'm importing MPPs from MSProject and all the "As Soon As Possible" entries are coming into SN as "Start on Specific Date".  I *should* expect these to be Start ASAP, right?

[Sunil B N]

Hi all,

"The Project Management application sets the time constraint for all imported tasks to Start on specific date irrespective of their time constraint in Microsoft Project."

So even ASAP tasks are also imported as Start on specific date to retain the planned dates on task.
This is done to preserve the planning done on Microsoft Project application so that dates are in tact as they were in Microsoft Project.

Nevertheless, supporting of other constraint types is in the future roadmap of ServiceNow.

Cheers,
Sunil B N

[Mike-NYC]

Thank you for the update, Sunil.

This is a very serious issue - please keep us posted on its resolution!

MS Project is the industry standard for PMs - and a proper export/import with MS Project is essential to adoption of SN:PPM. 

In New York, if you export an automatic project with all tasks set to ASAP from SN - then take that MS project file and import it back into SN - the constraints are all set to start on specific date!

The project is set to manual - which can be corrected in one step. 

However, even when this change is made back to "A" - the individual tasks are all still set to start on a specific date. This is not how the export/import should function. 

I am currently fixing a plan line by line that was exported and imported back into SN. Also, I do not even know if my work will matter because as I switch individual child tasks back to ASAP, their parent tasks remain set to start on specific date. Perhaps that's because I'm at the top of my plan and changing tasks that are already closed? It's maddening!

Thank you for your help, 

Mike

[Lilly Souksamla]

Hi, 

With the Paris release, imported MSProjects can be selected as Automatic or Manual calculation types on import.  Automatic will honor MSP constraints for those we support (start as soon as possible, start no later than, start no earlier than, and must start on (start on specific date)).  For those constraints we do not yet support, they will be "start on specific date", otherwise known as fixed dated tasks/manual. If one imports as project as Manual, all tasks will be "start on specific date".  There is no change to behavior for Manual projects.