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Projects are all about building a timeline. Precursive OBX helps you create repeatable project timelines in Salesforce using Task Templates. In your Task Template define the dependencies between the tasks so when the Template is selected your project plan will be built automatically.

How to Set Dependencies Between Tasks

Defining Dependencies within Task Templates

In Precursive OBX, you can define the scheduling of any Task that has a dependency on another task (the ‘Predecessor’ task). The Task Dependencies are always set as Finish to Start, which means that one task has to finish before another begins.

A Finish to Start dependency means "Task A must finish before Task B can begin" (or "B can't start until A has finished").

Usually, the process starts with a Start Date of Today or (TODAY)+x DAYS, where the date can be dependent on the Creation date of the Board, which can be defined based on one of the Opportunity Dates, Status change, or other. Then the flow continues task by task with the combined values of the Task Duration and the Lag Time between Tasks.

With the Multiple Dependencies functionality introduced in OBX 21.* everything works in the same way but with the ability to build a more complex Task Dependencies structure as not all projects are simple and linear.

How to Set Task Dependencies

To link your tasks, make sure the Predecessor has to have an End Date, and the Dependent Task a predefined Lead, or Lag number of days in relation to End Date of its Predecessor task and each Task has a unique Reference.

1. Open your Template and add the following columns - Start Date / Reference / Predecessor Dependencies Reference / Duration (Days)
2. Set a Reference against each task.
3. Set the Predecessor reference on the dependent task. Grab the Reference value of the prior Task and paste it onto the Predecessor Reference cell of the second one. Add the Lead/Lag value after the reference with underscore “_”. You can add multiple dependencies by separating them with a semi-colon, for example: 
   • “KickOff_+1”: the Task with Reference 'KickOff' is the predecessor and Lead/Lag value equals 1 day
   • “KickOff_+1;Sharing Doc_+3”: both the Task with Reference 'KickOff' and the one with Reference with 'Sharing Doc' are the predecessors and the Lead/Lag value equals respectively 1 and 3 days.

Please, remember:

• You need to identify each Task with a unique Reference value

• If a Task is dependent on another Task, we identify its Predecessor in the Predecessor Reference column. The Predecessor Reference value is the Reference of the task that precedes it.

• The Task Dependency is always relative to the End Date of the Predecessor Task. We consider this value as the start date for the calculation of the Lead/Lag (Days) between the two, or more, Tasks.

• The Predecessor Task should always have a Duration in Days on the template. Duration is necessary to define the Start Date of the Dependent Task.

• If a Dependent Task can start before the Predecessor’s End Date, then we assign a negative number (-1, -2 etc) for the dependent task’s Lead/Lag (Days) value that should be added after underscore (please look at examples above). This represents a Lead in relation to the finish of its predecessor.

• If a Dependent Task can start on the same day as the Predecessor’s End Date, then we set the Lead/Lag (Days) number as 0 (zero).
• If a Dependent Task should start 1 or more days after the predecessor’s End Date, then its Lead/Lag (Days) number is positive to reflect that lag.

Dependencies Examples

In the above example, the Task with Reference 'Handover' starts with a date of 'TODAY', which is a reference to the creation date of the Board. The ‘Book Kickoff’, which is the second task on the list, will start in 1 day (duration of the Predecessor - 1 day and lag between tasks - 0 days). The third one on the list, ‘Kickoff Call’, will start in 5 days (duration of Predecessors equals 2 days and lag between predecessor - 3 days).

Considerations for References

• Your reference has to be unique to the Board, this also means the same Template cannot be uploaded on the same Board more than once.
• Your Predecessor References can refer to a Reference from another Template, however, if the Predecessor does not exist on the Board at the time the template is imported you will receive an error.

Related Resources

Task Template Cheat Sheet