Need help defining start dates

Hi,

I'm trying to come up with a project template. In the project, I want tasks
to be completed within a certain timeframe after a previous task has been
completed. For example, account exec makes a phone call. I want an internal
meeting to take place within 2 business days from that call.

How do I define this? Do I just pick an arbitrary start date for the project
then set the phone call task and define the meeting task to start 2 days from
the completion of phone call task?

I just don't want these dates to be set in stone as this will only be a
template. What I'm more interested in is start and completion deadlines i.e.
Account Exec must make phone call within 24 hours of assignment. Internal
meeting must take place within 2 business days from phone call made.

In our case, we have a lot of tasks that don't take a lot of time but they
need to be executed in a timely fashion. And I want to make sure that people
will do what they need to do on time.

How do I define them these start and finish deadlines?
--
Thanks,

Sam

Mike
Thu Aug 18 16:45:02 CDT 2005


Hi Sam,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup :)

I would set up the tasks with the lag dependency as you suggested in a
template. Then when you know the start date, apply the adjust_dates macro
from the Analysis toolbar.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://www.mvps.org/project/

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on :)

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

Sam wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to come up with a project template. In the project, I want
> tasks to be completed within a certain timeframe after a previous
> task has been completed. For example, account exec makes a phone
> call. I want an internal meeting to take place within 2 business days
> from that call.
>
> How do I define this? Do I just pick an arbitrary start date for the
> project then set the phone call task and define the meeting task to
> start 2 days from the completion of phone call task?
>
> I just don't want these dates to be set in stone as this will only be
> a template. What I'm more interested in is start and completion
> deadlines i.e. Account Exec must make phone call within 24 hours of
> assignment. Internal meeting must take place within 2 business days
> from phone call made.
>
> In our case, we have a lot of tasks that don't take a lot of time but
> they need to be executed in a timely fashion. And I want to make sure
> that people will do what they need to do on time.
>
> How do I define them these start and finish deadlines?