Keep task on nearest working day when changing to Automatically Scheduled mode
A question I often get asked is: When I activate or deactivate “Keep task on nearest working day when changing to Automatically Scheduled mode” radio button, it seems to make absolutely no difference”
This function Keep task on nearest working day can be found on the File, Options command under the Schedule group:
It does not refer to the start and finish dates of a task alone. If you set a task (say 5 days duration) as a Manually scheduled task. Either move it (say several days into the future directly on the Gantt view, or by double-clicking on the task name, and on the General tab, set a start date in the future.
Keep task on nearest working day Options
NOW, if you have the above box checked, and change the task to an Auto scheduled task, it will stay where it is, even if you now link it to another task since it has a ‘Start No Earlier’ constraint on it.
If the box is unchecked, then when you change the task to Auto scheduled, it will return to the project start, and if you then link it from a predecessor, it will honour the link logic.
Put simply, checking the box will respect any constraints on the task if changed from manual to auto scheduling, and unchecking the box then changing to auto-scheduled will set the task constraint to ‘As Soon As Possible’, and hence respect any predecessor linking.
Now frankly, I always set my tasks to Auto schedule in the first place. Why?
Because then when I link them to show logical predecessors, the tasks always schedule themselves to give me the critical path and earliest finish date, and by default, each task has the default constraint of ‘Start As Soon As Possible’ – because that is what you would normally want to do in the real world!
So checking/not checking that particular box is not relevant if you have set (In the Options dialog box) that all new tasks are to be Auto schedule type!
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