You can enter fixed dates for the project elements. If you do not enter fixed dates for the project, the system sets the current date as the start date. The finish date remains empty. The system calculates the finish date from the remaining project data during scheduling.

In order to change attributes that influence dates and to carry out scheduling, you require administration authorization.

You can enter phase dates that overlap as well as task dates or checklist item dates that are outside the phase dates. The system informs you if the dates overlap each other by displaying messages in the log.

The system uses messages to inform you of any conflict situations during scheduling, for example, if task dates are outside the time frame of phases during top-down scheduling.

The time unit for the duration of project elements is Day.

You can enter a duration for phases and tasks. You can enter fixed dates for the planned start and the planned finish, and can assign a calendar for project definitions, phases, and tasks. For checklist items, you can only enter a fixed date for the planned finish.

You can also edit dates in the table view (see Table View) and the graphical view (see Graphical View).

You can schedule each project element individually. When the dates are scheduled, the dates of the dependent project elements (lower-level elements and linked elements) are taken into account and also scheduled. If you have selected the Scheduling Only Manually, the dates are scheduled only for the current project element.

The system calculates the start and finish dates of the project elements (for checklist items only finish dates) in earliest and latest position.

Tasks belong to a checklist item and the corresponding checklist belongs to a phase or a project. The dates of those tasks are calculated based on the dates of this phase or project.

The dates of the checklist items are determined from the latest finish date of the assigned tasks, or if no tasks have been assigned, from the finish date of the phase or project.

The dates of the phases are calculated on the basis of the dates of the project definition, taking into account their order, duration, and fixed dates. Tasks are not taken into account.

The dates of the tasks of a phase are calculated on the basis of the dates of the phase, taking into account their links, duration, fixed dates, and actual dates, if any exist. The dates of the subtasks are calculated in the same way, using the dates from the higher-level tasks.

Provided that a project element has the status Created, the dates of this project element and its dependent elements are recalculated automatically when you make date-relevant changes to a dependent project element. The system recalculates once you perform the next action in the system (for example, if you change to a new tab page or save your data) or choose Enter on your keyboard.

After releasing a project element, the system no longer automatically calculates the dates of the lower-level project elements, it only does this if you call scheduling manually (see Scheduling Manually). If you make changes to a project element below a released project element, only the dates of this one project element are recalculated.

Once you release the project, the system automatically schedules only the project elements that still have the status Created.

You can switch the automatic scheduling off by selecting the checkbox Scheduling Only Manually. If you have selected this checkbox, the system only carries out scheduling for the currently accessed project element. For more information, see Making User Settings.

You can implement method MOVE_ELEMENT of BAdI: Make Settings for Scheduling.

You can implement method BUTTON4MOVE_ELEMENT of BAdI: Make Settings for Scheduling to unhide the Copy Actual to Planned checkbox on project header level in the frontend with which you can control the overwriting. The system then ignores the implementation of method MOVE_ELEMENT.