Remove Fixed Start Date

GanttProject Desktop Support
#1

Hi!

First of all thanks for providing this software!

I have created my first project but I hit an obstacle that I found no solution for here. First I filled in several tasks I thought of. In a second step I added durations and then created dependencies where required. When I was looking at the overall timeline I saw that there are several gaps in my time line where nothing happens.
The issue is that some task do have a fixed start date, which I did not set! These start dates seem to be randomly in the future. How can remove such a date hand have the scheduler plan the start and end?
I tried:
setting constrains → no influence
removing the date → not allowed to have an empty field date is reset
set earliest date → is ignored

The only way I found is setting a fixed date according to the constrains. But this is not very user friendly in case a date changes.

#2

Sorry, I don’t understand the issue.

"The issue is that some task do have a fixed start date, which I did not set! ", These start dates seem to be randomly in the future.

What did you mean? GanttProject never sets any random dates.

You may want to describe a short reproducible scenario and/or attach a sample project and a description of a concrete issue.

#3

Hi Dimitry,

sorry for being not specific enough. Maybe an image helps.

grafik
grafik1303×349 20 KB

The marked task as a beginning set to 2023-05-29. I never set this date. As you can see in the chart it is randomly in the future. The task itself has no constrains. The summary task above is set as the successor of the task bevor. In the summary task start and end are greyed out.

So how can I remove the constraint “Anfang” in my task? If I try to delete it and exit the field the old date is inserted again.

Thanks.

#4

Hi,

I just tried deleting the task and creating it new. When I created the task a new random date was suggested. Why is there a fixed start date set during creating a new task? Why is GanntProject not trying to figure out what the earlies possible date would be according to the line the task is created in?

#5

When you create a new task, its start date is the first date which is visible on the chart.

#6

Hi Dimitry,

I understand what I did wrong. When creating new task always make sure your timeline is scrolled all the way back to your first date.

But the issue remains. I recreated the task with my time line scrolled to the beginning and it was set correctly. Then I found an error and corrected that. Most tasks were correctly moved to an earlier date but not the one I just created. It stayed on the date it was.

So is it possible to deactivate the start date and have the app calculate the start date? So that tasks move correctly within the plan, when something is changed?

Thanks!

#7

GanttProject will not move any task unless there is a constraint which instructs to do so. It might be a dependency, or the earliest start date constraint, or parent-child relationship between tasks.

You may want to read some docs: GanttProject Scheduler Explained - GanttProject Docs