This week, we released an important update to Wrike’s Dynamic Timeline™ – task date constraints. This feature is familiar to those of you who switched to Wrike project management software from Microsoft Project. In this post, we’ll tell you about this new functionality and how you and your peers can benefit from using it.
From time to time, we all have to deal with tasks that are closely connected to each other in the project workflow. In such cases, a project management tool with dynamic timeline allows you to quickly build a precise plan, considering the connection between tasks and the contingency time. Wrike lets you connect tasks with dependencies within one project, as well as set cross-project dependencies. Now, with the release of constraints on the timeline, the dependent tasks can have a time lag between them, so that you can build even more accurate project schedules!
Let’s simplify this real business scenario to an exemplary situation, where only two tasks are involved. Say you plan to interview one of your most loyal customers and publish a success story on your website. First, you need to prepare the list of questions. Only after the questions are ready can you proceed to the interview. However, you find out that your customer is going on a 3-day business trip and can’t have the interview on the day you initially planned. You need to reflect this delay in the project schedule. In this case, you can connect these two tasks on the timeline, considering the date constraints. Here’s how: point the cursor over the top right-hand corner of the task bar for “Prepare questions.” A small triangle appears. Click on the triangle and drag the line to the dependent task, called “Interview the customer.” This way, you can create a strict dependency. Then drag the dependent task on the timeline to the proper start date to create a task date constraint, as shown in the screenshot below.
Here’s an example of a Gantt chart with dependencies:
Task date constraints on Wrike’s timeline will help you build an accurate project plan that’s shared with your peers. If we look at it on a wider scale, this will keep your project workflow perfectly organized in a multitasking environment and help your team avoid any slips in the schedule.
