Dependent tasks do not move properly, when dates of depending task are changes

English Forum Tips and Tricks
1

Hi,
We have developed a quite complex project template with a lot of dependencies, as our projects (building large scale solar power plants) range over a timeframe of around 3 years, with loads of different processes that are being executed by different departments, and leading up to several milestones.

Now we finished the template and started testing how the whole project is behaving, if processes/tasks change their start/due date (timeline view, consume buffers, no weekends accounted) . Unfortunately we see random errors occuring, several tasks move as they should, but others do not move as they are supposed, so they account for errors running through the whole dependency line/critical path of the project.

The asana support has not been too helpful so far, and also reducing the template a lot, has not completely erased the error (Under 200 tasks and 50 dependencies overall).

Has anyone else faced similar problems?

1 Like
2

@Lone_Werner - could you give an example(s) of what you’re seeing specifically? With consume buffers on, you’ll need to make sure no dependent tasks overlap, otherwise the system won’t recognize any buffer and the subsequent task will not move as expected.

3

Hi Stephen,
all my tasks are dependent on one another, and in the beginning, no tasks overlap (all arrows in the timeline view are black). When I move my first task in timeline view, almost all other tasks move accordingly, except for 2:
task no. 2 (duration is longer than task no. 1) does not start after task no. 1, but starts before, ends after.
I have 4 Milestones in this version, and the task right before milestone no. 2 also does not start after the preceding task, as it is supposed to, but starts earlier and produces a red arrow, and hence all tasks following are not moved to the correct date (but no further red arrows are produced).

So all of the tasks are actually moved, but 2 of them do not move to the correct date and produce red arrows.
Which tasks produce the errors is random and each time we move the first task, other tasks produce the errors, hence it is very difficult to reproduce the error…

4

@Lone_Werner - super odd, a couple followup questions:

  • Are all of your dependency types finish-start, or are some of them different?
  • Do you have any parts of your dependency chain where a task is preceded by multiple other tasks?
5

Hi Stephen,
The asana support has now confirmed, part of the issue seems to be a bug, that the task that is moved manually, is not shifted to the correct date.

We are not sure right now, whether this will resolve our issues.

We have adaptet our template, so most dependencies should be start-finish now, but there were others as well before. Otherwise, if these don’t work, why offer these as options?

Definitely, we have tasks that are blocked by multiple tasks, or others are also blocking several tasks (especially milestones)…

6

Unfortunately our issue still has not been solved. We have concluded we have no dependency cycles, and we have also shown, that the task is not moved to the right date (when moved by drag and drop) at first when the calculation starts, it only moves to the right date afterwards, resulting in a red arrow in the very end. In my opinion this must be a bug in the software somewhere, but the support team is blaming out project setup still…