End date

Question

I am new to project, have entered in the majority of my tasks but noticed that the Project End Date seems to be the last date any given task was completed on.  Meaning it is a historical date.  How do I get Project to assume that anything that has not been started yet should begin today?  So in essence Project will tell me the end date of my project with the tasks included, I won't tell Project the date.  Is this possible?

Answer 1

Polka22 --

Are the completed tasks predecessors to unstarted and in progress tasks?  If so, you need to link them.  Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Mr. Howard,

  I didn't link any of the completed regular tasks as they were already completed.  Are you saying that there is no way for Project to provide a future date for a project End date when there are both complete and incomplete tasks included?  I must not be understanding because it seems to me that this is the whole point of using Microsoft Project. 

Polka

Answer 3

Polka --

Do you have regular tasks (not summary tasks) that are not linked?  If so, that would cause the problem you are seeing with the Finish date of the project.  Microsoft Project will always calculate the Finish date of the project as the Finish date of the latest finishing task.  Hope this helps.

Answer 4

Mr. Howard,

  Thank you for the great information and I am honored that you would take the time to respond to me.  I have done all that you mentioned above, to include taking a class on Microsoft Project but my End dates of incomplete tasks and thus the project is still the latest completed task date.  So it is a historical date since the project has been running for over a year now and we are just implementing Microsoft Project as a management tool.  Do you have any further suggestions?  Thank you.

Answer 5

Polka22 --

As a new user, I would recommend you follow this process for defining and planning your project:

1. Set the Start date of the project in the Project Information dialog (Project > Project Information).  This will cause Microsoft Project to calculate the Finish date of your project based on the planned Start date and the sequence of tasks.
2. Display the Project Summary Task (Row 0 or Task 0).  Click Format and then select the Project Summary Task checkbox (right end of the ribbon).
3. Enter your list of tasks.
4. Move tasks around as needed.
5. Create summary tasks, wherever needed.
6. Create milestones wherever needed.  Be sure to include a Project Complete milestone as the last task in the project.
7. Link your tasks so that you see the proper task sequence.  The default dependency type is Finish-to-Start, which should work for most of your tasks.  If not, link a pair of tasks, double-click the link line between the two Gantt bars, and choose one of the three other dependency types.
8. Enter Duration estimates wherever possible.
9. Set constraints and Deadline dates, as needed.
10. Assign resources to your tasks.

At this point, your project should be pretty close to being ready to go live.  And at this point, you should see the Finish date of the project, shown as the date on the final Project Complete milestone.  Also, since you are a new user, I would strongly recommend you get some training on how to use the tool well, or at least buy a good book on the subject.  For example, I can recommend the Ultimate Study Guide book on either Microsoft Project 2010 or Microsoft Project 2013, available from msProjectExperts at:

http://www.projectserverbooks.com

I can recommend the above books since I was a co-author of both books.  Hope this helps.