Project Template with relative Timeline due dates

Hello!

Fairly new to Asana, but happy to here. I’m hoping there is a solution in place to create relative timelines based on the project end date. This way my team can create a project from the template and by entering the end/due date for the Project all tasks would adjust their due dates accordingly based on the pre-establish windows of completion.

Looking forward to understand how this can be done.

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There is a way right now. I’m not sure whether to call it a method or a workaround. I would create the template with a start date of 1/1/2020 or some other round obvious date, and set up all the tasks and dependencies with correct durations (i.e. delta of due date to start date) and the correct offset to the generic start date of 1/1/2020.

When I want to use the template, I’d activate it. There is no way to automatically adjust start and due dates in Asana, but it can be done relatively quickly using the Timeline and the bulk select option in Timeline. Just adjust either your first task or your last task where you want it to be, then select the other tasks in bulk and drag them to the correct timing that correlates to your chosen endpoint. You’ll know things need to be moved either by seeing excess space, or red dependency arrows. It looks like you can move as many tasks as you can grab in 1 screen (no scrolling) of the Timeline; I was able to move 32 tasks simultaneously.

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Amazing!

That seems like a reasonable workaround i can get behind!

Thank you, Stephanie

Hi @Guillaume,

You might also want to check out my Flowsana integration. It includes the following capabilities:

  • Currently available, the Auto-Adjust Workflow type lets you change a task’s start and/or due date and all dependent task dates will be automatically adjusted.
  • Also currently available, the Dynamic Duration Workflow type lets you set a duration (in days, weeks or months) for each project task, then enter a project start date and all task dates will be automatically calculated/set/maintained based on the project start date, task durations, and dependency structure.
  • Perhaps closest to what you’re wanting, next week there will be an initial beta available of a new Dynamic Duration variant, “Workback workflows” - similar to Dynamic Duration above, but instead of entering a project start date, you’ll enter a project end date and it will calculate/set/maintain all tasks backward from that end date, again based on task durations and dependency structure. This should be available next Monday.
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  • Also currently available, the Dynamic Duration Workflow type lets you set a duration (in days, weeks or months) for each project task, then enter a project start date and all task dates will be automatically calculated/set/maintained based on the project start date, task durations, and dependency structure.

How is this not part of the tool yet?

Hi @Leanne6 , welcome to the forum :wave:

Actually this has been available for some time now, you can check out the guide article here:

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