Schedule Projects › Autoschedule Projects › Autoschedule Projects from a Finish Date

Autoschedule Projects from a Finish Date

You can autoschedule projects from a finish date to help you find out on which date your project needs to start in order to meet a required finish date. When you choose to schedule your project based on its finish date, Autoschedule performs three traversals of the project. In the second and third traversals it goes over the tasks backward first and enforces finish constraints over start constraints so that the project is scheduled to start as late as possible.

When you run Autoschedule using a project's finish date, it does the following:

• Calculates the late finish and late start dates
• Moves the late finish date forward
• Checks for any fixed loading pattern assignments
• Adjusts the late start or late finish date to make sure the fixed assignments are within the project's date range

To autoschedule your project from a finish date

1. Select Autoplan from the Schedule group in the Project ribbon.

   The Autoschedule dialog box opens.

2. Select the Schedule from Finish Date check box to perform a backwards schedule from a defined deadline date.

   The Start Date field toggles to the Finish Date field. The current project finish date displays in the Finish Date field.

3. Enter the project's anticipated finish date in the Finish Date field, and click OK.

   The project or selected tasks are scheduled from the finish date.

More information:

Autoschedule Projects

Define Task Scheduling Constraints