Setting Project Dates

Projects contain several dates to help keep the project on track to its launch. Your role and rights within the project determine if you can set or change dates throughout the project, as described in the sections below. Each type of date can be set from respective pages in a project, or directly in the process graphic displayed within a project.

• Project start and end dates
• Stage and gate dates
• Deliverable and activity dates

For information about the format in which a date is entered and displayed, see Changing the Display Language and Date Format.

If you have Allow Updates Through All My Work rights, click in the All My Work page to download the contents of the page to a spreadsheet file to update the dates in multiple projects at once.

Project Start and End Dates

Each project has a start date when the project began or is scheduled to begin, and an end date when the project is projected to end or has ended for completed projects. Selections in the model determine where project start and end dates are available and where they are required within projects. Possible locations include on project creation or migration, the Home and Details pages, and within the process graphic displayed within a project.

Process Managers and Idea Managers with Manage Process rights, and the assigned Project Manager can set project start and end dates.

Stage and Gate Dates

For gated projects, after the project start and end dates are defined, the start and end dates of the stages are set based on the gate dates for each gate. The first stage lasts from the project's start date to the first gate date. The second stage is from the first gate to the second gate date, and so on.

Process Managers and Idea Managers with Manage Process rights can set gate dates for all gates in a project. Gate owners can set and change gate dates for gates that they own. Set gate dates directly within the process graphic displayed in the project, on the Gates page, or on a project-specific page that contains a meeting date tile.

Note:  The Set gates page to read-only setting in the process model determines if the content on the Gate page and the gate dates in the process graphic can be edited.

Gate dates are also set automatically in the following circumstances:

• When workflows assigned to a deliverable are completed. The workflow must have an automated step to set the gate date upon workflow completion. See Adding Steps to Workflows for more information.
• When the model for the project uses a metric to set the gate date. These dates can be overridden at the project level. Additionally, if gate decisions have pushed a project into a previous stage the gate date metric value cannot calculate the gate date. Gate dates that have been manually overwritten or do not match the value of the associated gate date metric display with next to the date in the process graphic to indicate the date was manually updated or does not match the metric. To recalculate a gate date, click Recalculate next to date in the Meeting Date field on the Gates page.

If the Allow Project Owners to Set Gate Dates parameter is set to 1, project owners including Project Managers and Process Managers (if no Project Manager is assigned) can set gate dates for gates with the status Pending Decision and Recycle.