Task Coach

How to get "Planned Start date" to Push Out according to subtask Planned Start Date Field

Asked by Jean-Marc Gagnon

I noticed that the date "Planned Start Date" will move up to the earliest "Planned Start Date" of the sub task list. This is a good thing. However, I am unable to have it push back out to the earliest sub task if I change the Sub Task "Planned Start Date" Field of the earliest task back out. Also, If I mannually remove the now falty date form the main task, it will take it out of all the subtask as well. So I am not sure how to get around this. It creates an inacurate report when I sort by Planned Start Dates so I am unabble to use this field at the moment. Suggestions?

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Frank Niessink
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Frank Niessink (frank-niessink) said : 		#1

Hi Jean-Marc,

I don't understand what you mean with "move up", "push back out" and "it will take out of all the subtask" . Could you give a concrete example with dates that shows the problem?

Thanks, Frank

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Jean-Marc Gagnon (dps-jean-marc) said : 		#2

Yes Frank thank you for addressing this so promptly.
I am using Task Coach v 1.3.13 on the latest Ubuntu 12.04

I create a new task called Main Task
The "Planned Start Date" is automaticly set to today (5/16/12). This is perfect and expected.
I change it to "5/21/12" (This is what I call: push back)
Now create a sub task called "subtask" The Planned Start Date is set to "5/21/12" again, perfect and expected
Now change the date of the subtask to "5/16/12" (This is what I call: move up)
The planned Start Date of the Main Task will also move up. This is logicall and expected, still no issues
Now I changed my mind on the sub task and I change the date again to "5/21/12"
Oups! The date of the Main Task stays the same. That is my issue.

In my case, the Main Task is Simply the name of a project. Not an action item. So I would like the date to follow the earliest sub task. How can I work around this?

I tried simply removing the date from the Main Task, but it also removes the date from the sub task. Plus everytime I add a sub task or do any changes the date of the Main task will come back. It prevents me from sorting my list of task using the Planned Start Date field since some of my Main Task have kept this date.

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Best Frank Niessink (frank-niessink) said : 		#3

Hi Jean-Marc,

Thanks for the explanation. I understand your issue now. However, this is designed behavior. Task Coach ensures that the main task has a start date that is never later than the earliest start date of any of the subtasks. However, it does not ensure that the start date of the main task is always equal to the earliest start date of any subtask. This was designed this way because people may not want to specify all sub tasks explicitly. Suppose you have a main task "write proposal for customer X" with subtasks "Calculate price" and "Get boss to sign it". Those two subtasks are not all the work you need to do write the proposal, so the start date of "write proposal" can be earlier than the start date of each of the subtasks.

Cheers, Frank

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Jean-Marc Gagnon (dps-jean-marc) said : 		#4

Thanks Frank Niessink, that solved my question.