Dependency, timeline and automation

Hi,

I am struggling with my project board and dependencies. A few of my tasks are dependent on multiple tasks (I’ve selected more than two tasks in the ‘dependent on’ column for a few of my tasks). FYI – The automation I’ve added on my dependency column with timeline are both ensure and adjust.

What I hope to achieve -

  1. The site doesn’t offer a column with just number of days. The closest substitute to that is timeline column.
  2. By the use of dependency and timeline together I want that whenever I alter the project start date (either to future or past). All the dates within the timeline column for all the tasks should change, honoring the dependencies.
  3. When a task is dependent on two or more task, I want my dependent task to start after all the ‘dependent on’ tasks are finished. (For example if X is dependent on both A and B, A finishes on 5th April and B on 7th April then X should start on 8th April). The timeline associated with x should automatically update as soon as I update the timeline for either A or B. Given, it is not mandatory for A to finish before B all the time.
    Problems I am facing –
  4. Although my dependencies are tightly knit and there are no gaps, still whenever I change the project start date, the number of days required to finish the project, change. Which should not happen. The only things that should be effected are the finish and start dates of various tasks and project end date.
  5. I noticed that if I add a dependency after putting in the timeline, Monday.com totally ignores that and does nothing to honor the automation.
  6. When a task is dependent on more than two tasks. The platform randomly picks a task to adjust the timeline of the dependent task.
  7. I’ve added both, ‘ensure and adjust’ recipes to my timeline and dependent on column because I want a task which is dependent on another task, to start right after the previous task has finishes, without any lag.

I request your assistance with the above queries. I previously contacted Monday.com about a few problems I was facing but it was hard to sort out all of it. With a lot of trail and errors and time being wasted I’m still stuck on the same project.

Thanks,
Lekhika

3 Likes

Hi @Lekhika welcome to the monday.com community!

Here are some initial thoughts on what you are facing:

  1. you can use a formula column that calculates number of days in either a timeline column or a date column here is the formula for a timeline column. DAYS({Timeline#End},{Timeline#Start}) (where ‘Timeline’ is the name of your timeline column

  2. I have accomplished this with dependency column for other projects, but Assuming you are using the ‘Ensure’ automation then when adding multiple dependent items you do have to be careful in the chain because you could possibly push the date of Item A but not change anything for Item B and if Item B were the long tail for Item C (where C is dependent on both A and B) then the date of C may never change.

here is a screenshot sample ![Screen Shot 2021-04-15 at 9.36.41 AM|690x220]
(upload://vN56ur7jgr58WQsWLXV53mOPOwM.png)

  1. to accomplish this (keeping in mind the complexity from bullet #2 above, you may need to adjust to using the ‘Adjust’ instead of the Ensure. (which is what my number 2 assumes you are using)

  2. see #2 for why this might be happening

  3. from my experience this is generally the case for all automations, you have to manually update the items after the automations are in place to get them to run.

  4. I haven’t seen this to be the case, but again this could have something to do with bullet #2

  5. I don’t believe this is possible, there should only be 1 dependency automation allowed for the same dependent on column and timeline. you may want to double check that they are both active. or perhaps you have to timelines or dependency columns.

Let me know if that helps, hopefully I’m barking up the right tree

Regards

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your reply and the formula. I’ve a few questions about it.

  1. Can the timelines dates change automatically if I change the duration manually?
  2. The current formula is calculating the duration as = end date-start date which actually comes out be a day less than the actual duration for me.

Through a number of emails with Monday. I’ve figured out that

  1. At this time the dependency column allows you to connect with one other task (item), so multiple dependencies are not supported.
  2. Automation do not work retroactively - so adding the dependency after setting the timeline will indeed not be taken into account. This is considered the expected behavior of the platform at the time.

Best Regards,
Lekhika

Hi @Lekhika

I didn’t realize the dependency only takes one into consideration, but that is good to know.

For your questions

  1. I believe you are asking if you can update the number of days column to change the duration. This would require some customization as Monday doesn’t support that behavior

  2. I see, the best way to do that then would just be to add 1 after the days are subtracted, as it looks like the days function is just calculating days between the two dates and not inclusive.

Regards

Thanks @timlittletech :slight_smile:

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.