Why Project Task Start and Finish Dates Change

Products

• Clarity PPM SaaS
• Clarity PPM On Premise

Issue/Introduction

There are times that the dates on tasks change.
The dates can be manually changed by a user, however it is unknown what else can cause the dates to update.

Steps to Reproduce:

Prerequisite: Check Allow Effort Task Creation in Administration > Project Management > Settings

1. Create a project with project dates in the past (Ensure track mode is set to PPM and the project is Open for Time Entry)
2. Add at least one resource to the Team tab of the project (This will create the effort task and automatically assign the resource to the task)
3. Post a timesheet for a date that is beyond the current project dates

Expected Results: Task dates do not change if time has not been submitted against them.

Actual Results: Review the task date and the dates should change based on the new 'Actuals Thru Date'

Cause

This is working as designed.

Resolution

The reason  the 'Actuals Thru Date' on the task assignment is being updated is due to the Post Timesheets job processing timesheet actuals against the project task.

If the task assignment has ETC, this affects the task dates.

Even if the timesheet that is posted does not contain any entries for the task, this issue can occur. The reason is that a resource has posted time through a specific date.
As the task still has ETC, Clarity will adjust the dates accordingly as it considers the task still open due to the remaining ETC.

Workaround: The one option to workaround this behavior is to close the project for time entry by unchecking 'Open for Time Entry' at the project level.