I’m transitioning from Smartsheet and trying to replicate a feature I can’t work without. I have a Smartsheet template that auto calculates an approximate delivery date based on the start date; taking into account various general task dependencies, durations, holidays/weekends, etc. For example, if a project begins today then I will get a rough idea of when the design, engineering, packaging, etc are expected to be complete. Attached is an example, hopefully it makes sense. Is this feature possible in Asana?
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Hi @anon54703358 and welcome to the forum!
Asana does not contain this feature. The only way to replicate the functionality you have is with my Flowsana integration; specifically what you want is the Dynamic Duration-based Workflow type (which I actually modeled heavily off of Smartsheet, in fact).
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Fantastic, thank you!
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Hello again @Phil_Seeman
I started using Flowsana and it’s working great, however I have a question about setting a project’s start date. The Flowsana FAQ says you can enter a start date and it will auto populate the due date, however Asana requires you to enter a due date. I currently get around that by setting a faux long due date, however this could lead to confusion down the road. Is there a way around this?
Hi @anon54703358,
Sounds like I may need to re-word the FAQ to be clearer because Flowsana doesn’t auto-populate the project due date. Can you send me a link and point to where it says that in the FAQ? Thanks!
Perhaps I misread because I can’t find it now 
nonetheless is my current approach of entering a prolonged due date the best practice? (since obviously if using duration-based the due date isn’t known)
Additionally, I successfully created a template with Sections and Tasks, however I’m having an issue creating one with individual sub-tasks (attached for reference). Each sub-task has a dependency and duration, however it stopped auto-populating due dates after the 1st sub-task. I tried setting the main task to the same dependency as it’s sub-task, however it didn’t make a difference. The main tasks also show due dates of Today, not sure if there’s a work-around for this?
Sorry if pestering, I can also go through a proper support ticket is easier.
Thank you!
Hi @anon54703358,
Yes, let’s handle this via Flowsana’s support system - I’m not wanting to clutter up the Asana forum with Flowsana-specific support questions. Thanks!!
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I may just be missing how to do this, but the dependencies feature seems a bit incomplete. If I have 3 subsequent serial tasks that each take a day and the first one slips one day, all of the others should slip by 1 day. Currently it seems like if a serial task slips, it just catches all of the subsequent tasks and just piles them on the new due date. At SpaceX we used Smartsheets quite a bit and the most important feature was the linking tasks with dependencies based on how the serial tasks affect each other. For example, we would make tasks A, B, and C. We would put A to be due on a Monday and then set task B to be done 2 days after task A and task C to be 1 day after task B. This would be shown on the calendar as task A on Monday, task B on Wednesday, and task C on Thursday. If a shipment or something was delayed by 1 week, we would simply push task A to the next Monday and tasks B and C would automatically move to the following Wednesday and Thursday. One benefit of this is that if you are working on a project with many dependencies you can see how different decisions will affect the schedule of the overall team and make decisions such as next day shipping or expedite costs since you can justify them based on how the overall team’s schedule is or isn’t affected. The UI for this was pretty simple, instead of selecting a calendar date on a dependencies, we would just put “task A + 2” or “task A + 2.5” and it would be linked.
Hi @TJB and welcome to the forum!
If you want more Smartsheet-like dependency behaviors, my Flowsana integration will give you those capabilities.
(Fun fact: Smartsheet was one of the main apps I used as a model in designing Flowsana.)
Hi @TJB, welcome to the Asana Community Forum! I believe we already have a thread on this topic, can you confirm if you would like the same feature requested here: Auto calculate due date with duration & dependencies? 
It definitely covers the same issue. Do you know how I could go about getting this added as a standard Asana feature rather than the additional integration? I’ll definitely give the integration a try for the interim though.
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Thanks for confirming @TJB! I’ve gone ahead and merged your post with the main thread to consolidate feedback. We don’t have immediate plans to implement this feature but I’ll keep the main thread updates if you have any news! Thanks for your feedback.
For everyone else in this thread, please add your votes so we can keep track of the feedback! Thanks!
Same problem here - I’ve written about it numerous times. Were I in charge of vendor selection, Smartsheet would have been my project management software of choice for content calendar + content process
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Can Asana please add the ability to add in durations that automatically calculate due date based on duration + start date. Along with this all the dependency dates should automatically shift based on their blocked by. This should be a basic function. It takes me 3 times as long now go and manually do all of this and it isn’t feasible to pay for a third-party software.
In the end if I put my very first task of the project should take 2 weeks start 10/31/22 then asana should calculate a due date of 11/14/22. Any items that are blocked by the completion of task one should update their dates based on this. If my first task has a delay and I change it to 3 weeks then the whole project should update. I really like Asana I just need this feature implemented.
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2 years down the road and still seems like Asana has ignored this request… Maybe should just go to other PM tools instead, there are so many out there.
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I just don’t get why this fairly standard feature has not been added. What is the point of dependencies if they have no impact? I feel like auto shifting dates is a standard feature along with due date based on lead times. I was giving them some time to work on it but now seeing it has been 2 yrs and they are still just send us to another paid program. I guess we willlook into smart sheets or other software that know has this capability.
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Yeah this is a huge roadblock for sustained adoption of Asana within our org. Asana was great when we were going through the “Storming” and “Norming” phases of emerging workflows, but now that we’re entering the “Performing” phase, it’s missing many features that would make it valuable beyond a purely “agile” (and who does pure agile, really?) management paradigm.
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I’m floored by this… Can I really not have asana calculate when my project will be finished based on a project start date and estimated durations for each task? Seriously, this is project management 101.
What’s a PM supposed to do if she has a 200-line project plan and one “due date” is missed? Manually recalculate EVERY task’s new due date?
I’m missing something, right?
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Since this thread was started, Asana released Gantt view available in any project.
You can do that now in Gantt view.
There are also new options for date shifting with dependency management options in Gantt, Timeline, and List views:
Thanks,
Larry
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Hi, @lpb
About durations in Gantt view
Set dependencies and entered durations.
After that,
First, move the predecessor task backwards.
Then, move the successor task forward.
As a result, durations for the predecessor task was reduced.
I wonder how this calculation works.
I think it’s a combination of avoiding holidays and automatic scheduling.
Attached is a diagram of how it works.
When I reproduced the above behavior using PMtool, which is different from Asana, the result was as shown in the following figure. This is the state I want to be in.
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