How to Calculate Task Dates for New Projects

As a project manager, when creating a project, you can copy tasks from an existing project or a template. You can use the following applications to create projects and accordingly the dates are calculated and used.

Application	Dates Used
Oracle Cloud Applications	The application calculates planned dates for tasks and uses them in your project plan. They're based on dates you specify for the new project and the dates available in the source project.
Microsoft Project	The dates available in Microsoft Project are used.

Settings That Affect Calculation of Task Dates

The task date calculation depends on:

Default settings in the project template
Settings in the project
Project details you enter in new project

Note: The project and task dates aren't impacted by the roll up task planned dates settings in the inherent project plan type.

How Task Dates Are Calculated

If you don't enter start and finish dates for your new project, then Project Foundation determines dates as follows:

If the project is created from a template, then the project start date is always the current date.
If the project is created from another project, then the project start date is the project start date of the source.
If tasks are defined in the source project, then the scheduled start date for the new project is derived from the rolled up task dates.

If you do enter a project start date, then Project Foundation shifts the task dates based on the difference between the dates of the source and the dates you specify for the new project. Consider the following example, where the task start and finish dates are pushed out 31 days based on the specified start dates.

Date Type	Source Template Date	Date Entered in Project Details	Resulting Project Date
Project Start	May 01, 2010	June 01, 2010	June 01, 2010
Project Finish	May 31, 2010	NA	July 01, 2010
Task Start	May 02, 2010	NA	June 02, 2010
Task Finish	May 31, 2010	NA	July 01, 2010

Note: When you change the task dates, the application verifies that the new dates are valid. The new dates are compared with transaction dates in other integrated applications, such as Oracle Procurement Cloud.

If you enter both a project start and finish date and the duration of the project is reduced, then task dates that are past the project finish date are truncated, as highlighted in the following example.

Date Type	Source Template Date	Date Entered in Project Details	Resulting Project Date
Project Start	May 01, 2010	June 01, 2010	June 01, 2010
Project Finish	May 31, 2010	June 15, 2010	June 15, 2010
Task 1 Start	May 01, 2010	NA	June 01, 2010
Task 1 Finish	May 15, 2010	NA	June 15, 2010
Task 2 Start	May 02, 2010	NA	June 02, 2010
Task 2 Finish	May 31, 2010	NA	June 15, 2010

Note: While updating the financial project plan and progress from Project Execution Management, the application updates the project schedule in Project Financial Management depending on the project financial settings.