We are using a project management approach with two date based columns.
1 timeline column which represents the earliest possible schedule to complete the work and uses the “Ensure that the {timeline} of an item always starts after the date of its {dependency} item” automation.
1 Date column which should represent the last possible date to complete a task (IE, the hard deadline).
The timeline column is forward scheduled - IE, each task starts when its dependency item is scheduled to be completed. The ‘Deadline’ (Date) column needs to be backward scheduled, so that we crate a final delivery milestone, and each dependency item’s last possible finish date should be scheduled at that milestone minus its own duration. And then each subsequent item moving up the gant should be filled in as its dependency item’s ‘Deadline’ date minus it’s dependancy items timeline duration.
We need an automation for back-scheduling such as “Ensure that the {date} a {dependency} item always starts before its {date} minus the {timeline} duration of its dependency item”, which does not exist yet.
I’ve also looked into doing this with the formula column, but it would require reading data from the {dependency} date. According to the information I can find on formulas quoted below, the formula column does not appear to be capable of reading from other subitems or dependencies than its own item row. Anyone have a suggestion on how to achieve this function?
"2. The Formula Column will read the board horizontally, meaning that it can not execute calculations vertically.
3. The Formula Column can read data from other column cells, but not from the column summary or any other area of the board."