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Hans1958's avatar
Hans1958
Copper Contributor
May 04, 2025

Don't overrun Due Date

Hi there, 

I have a project and of course also a due date. 

How can I make sure that due date will not be overrun? 

If I increase the duration in row 3 ("bbb") to e.g. 9 days then the Due Date ("Ablieferung/Delivery") got overrun. 

When I set there in row 4 ("Ablieferung/Delivery") a predecessor, then the due date is floating into the future. 

General: I think this is problem is the core of every project. In the competitor software Smartsheet I can easily set up a formula that shows me the slack time. And in Smartsheet I can then set up conditional formating to show the line gets red. But how can I help myself in MS-Project??

Any help will be greatly apprecitated! Thank-you already dearly in advance!

Best regards

Hans ... from Germany

 

1 Reply

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  • John-project's avatar
    John-project
    Silver Contributor
    May 05, 2025

    Hans1958,

    You have set up both a deadline date and a hard constraint (i.e. must-finish-on). I suggest you add the Total Slack field as a column in the view. For a deadline only date (i.e. normal constraint of "as-soon-as-possible"), if the schedule finish goes beyond the deadline, the total slack will show by how much.

    However, if you leave the hard constraint and eliminate the deadline, the total slack will show how much slack is "available"

    Or, if the schedule shows the finish going beyond the constraint date, the total slack will again show by how much.

    Generally hard constraints are not desirable as they constrain the normal schedule dynamics.

     

    John

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