Planning and dates (auto-plan)

Planning and dates (auto-plan)

With task durations and dependencies, Sytex calculates the workflow's dates, its critical path, and a baseline to measure slippage.

Link Dependencies: what each task enables

Each task defines its predecessors: the tasks immediately before it. They feed the date calculation and the critical path. You can also control, separately, what happens while a dependency isn't complete:
  • Dependencies restrict starting: the task can't start until its dependencies are complete.
  • Dependencies restrict completion: the task can't complete until its dependencies are complete.
  • Visibility by predecessor / by children: the task doesn't appear on the board until its predecessor —or all its subtasks— are complete. It's visual, not a block.
These four are easy to mix up: two control when the task is seen, two when it can be advanced.

Spiral Calendar How dates are calculated

Sytex builds a graph from the tasks and their predecessors, and from it calculates:
  • Each task starts the day after its predecessor ends (if the predecessor lasts more than 0 days; if it's a 0-day milestone, it starts the same day).
  • With several predecessors, the latest one wins.
  • end = start + duration − 1 (a duration of 0 counts as 1 day for the end).
  • If a task has a minimum schedule date , the calculation shifts to respect it.
Tasks with a pinned date, those that require plan confirmation and already have a start, and those In progress or Completed are not moved.

Gear The three auto-plan modes

Set on the template:
  • Disable auto-plan: you set the dates by hand. The critical path is still calculated for reports.
  • Reschedule task dependencies (conservative): only pushes forward . It recalculates a date only if the task has no start or its date has become impossible; it never pulls a task with a viable date earlier. Ideal when dates are negotiated with third parties.
  • Schedule optimization (aggressive): recalculates all dates from the graph, forward and backward. If a predecessor finishes earlier, the successors move up; if it slips, they move back. Ideal for real construction planning.
The master switch Automatic rescheduling (in the template header) decides whether the recalculation fires on its own. If dates "won't move," it's almost always because auto-plan is on Disable, or the tasks have pinned dates or are already in progress.

Bullseye Critical path and baseline

  • Critical task: defines which path the critical path is measured on. There's one per workflow ; if you don't mark any, the longest path in the graph is used.
  • Baseline: the pair of start and end dates against which slippage is measured. Together with the forecast date , it lets you see how much the workflow moved —without arguing about it.