Currently, it seems that relative due dates are only available within the construction of a project template. Many industries have user needs where task A needs to be submitted XX days prior to task B, or where task D is due (or must commence) XX days following task C.
Examples include: waiting XX days for concrete to cure prior to performing further site construction (task B lags (+XXd) ask A), scheduling a 30-day follow-up after a trigger event (task B lags (+30d) task A), securing a venue reservation six(6) months prior to an event (task A leads (-6m) task B), a draft product must be delivered five(5) days prior to a final product (task A leads (-5d) task B by five days) etc.
To put Asana’s features more in line with competitor’s software, I urge you to please consider the following function upgrades to the relative dates feature set:
Enable relative due dates to operate in both directions relative to a task or milestone! This is crucial since many tasks/milestones will have both predecessors and successors, and every project has closure activities to do even following final delivery of a product to a client. (Allowing relatives dates in one direction only is a critical limitation.)
Allow realtive due dates to be set from directly within a project (rather than only in the templates).
Enable relative due dates to operate from a project master calendar which accounts for non-working days/times. (see my other upgrade request for a project master calendar)
If there are existing solutions or implementations of these requests in Asana which I am not aware of, please let me know. Thank you!
Some good feature requests here.
One of them already exists as you can shift your tasks/ milestones due dates.
The feature is called auto-shifting dependency dates.
You can do that from timeline view of your project. Check out this thread.
Thanks @Rashad_Issa. I am aware that the timeline view preserves the relative dependencies. However, it is not always convenient, practical, or necessary to work out of timeline view. It is also surprising-and quite limiting!–that access to relative date programming is only available within templates.
An ideal solution would be one where relative due dates are retained regardless of how the user views project tasks, and irrespective of whether or not I use a template.
Creating task dependencies is only partially useful for follow-on activities which have a date range in which they must occur following a trigger task.
Example: Tasks E and F must be part of my project schedule. F must be completed within 10 business days following the completion of E, whose date is not yet known. As a user, I want the ability to put a joined set of tasks–E and F–on my schedule even though I may not yet know their dates. And I also want to avoid reprogramming their task relationship if E’s date changes.