Forum Discussion
Filter Creation
Hello, I'm hoping this community can help me.
I want to create a filter that will dynamically show all in progress tasks as of today's date. I've built the filter as follows: Start is less than or equal to [Value] -AND- Finish is greater than or equal to [Value].
My issue is what to enter as the Value. Copilot said to use "Current Date," "Now()" and "Today," but none of them are dynamic.
It even told me to create a new field titled "Today" using the following formula for the Custom Attribute: Today=Date(). Then, it said to reference the "Today" field as the filter Value (e.g. Start is > or = to Today). But that returns the following error: "The entry is not valid. The test value cannot be used with the field for the data you want to find or filter for."
At this point I'm at a loss. This seems like it should be a very easy filter to set up; I'm surprised there isn't a built-in system filter for this already. There 's a built in filter titled "In Progress Tasks," but that only filters tasks with an Actual Start that is not blank, and an Actual Finish that is blank.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
8 Replies
Try this 2-step approach.
- Create a flag with the formula shown below
2. Use this newly created flag in your filter criteria.
Save the View and anytime you open it, it should only show you Tasks that are in-progress.
PlannersPlace,
Unless I'm missing something, this does the same thing as the built-in "In Progress Tasks" filter.
John
John,
You are right, it does the same thing as the built-in in-progress tasks filter.
Hi Charlie
You can try using only numeric values corresponding to the dates you'll use in your filter.
For example, using a formula, convert:
Number1 = [Start]
Number2 = [Finish]
Number3 = [Current date]
...and your filter would look like this:If you want, you can change the current date that Project uses by default in Project > Project Info. The selection will be displayed when you apply the filter, or by refreshing the screen if the filter is active and the current date is changed. One of the quick ways to refresh the screen is with Ctrl+F2, Undo+Redo, Reload View, etc.
I hope this helps.
Ignacio
vincentcbv,
I'm a little confused. The built-in filter "In Progress Tasks" shows all tasks that have started but are not finished (i.e. "in progress"). That is what you are asking for. So what additional tasks are you expecting your dynamic filter to show?
Perhaps a screen shot example would help.
John
The “In Progress Tasks” filter relies on the Actual Start and Actual Finish fields, but I’m using Start and Finish instead. Because of this, the default filter won’t work if Actual Start is blank or Actual Finish has a date.
My custom filter highlights tasks correctly—where Start is in the past and Finish is in the future—but it uses a static “today” date. This means I have to manually update the filter’s value each day for it to work.
- In Progress Tasks filter
The “In Progress Tasks” filter relies on the Actual Start and Actual Finish fields, but I’m using Start and Finish instead. Because of this, the default filter won’t work if Actual Start is blank or Actual Finish has a date.
My custom filter highlights tasks correctly—where Start is in the past and Finish is in the future—but it uses a static “today” date. This means I have to manually update the filter’s value each day for it to work.
Charlie
Charlie,
I see the tasks you are highlighting, but they are NOT "in progress" tasks. They are tasks that should have started but did not start as planned. So again, what exactly are you trying to show?
Note there are several other built-in filters for unstarted tasks (e.g. "Late tasks", "Should start by", "Slipping tasks", "Date Range", etc.).
So okay, whatever your goal, here is one way to do an "end around run" with Project's "fussy" filtering. Try these steps.
- Create a custom Flag field with the following formula: Flag1 = IIf([Start]<={Current Date], "yes","no")
- Filter on the Flag1 field
Here's an example
And this is what results when the filter is applied
Another option is to use an interactive filter like this
Hope this helps,
John
