Constraints & dependencies not reflecting in dates

Q & A
#1

Hi All,
I’m trying to link 3 events:

  1. Planning for The Picnic (must happen 5 days before a Picnic that must happen on a fixed date)
  2. The Picnic (on a fixed date)
  3. Discussing the Picnic (1 day after its fixed date)

I’ve succeeded (I think) by setting date constraint for “start equals” so the Picnic is on the correct fixed date.

But the other 2 dates don’t change to match. I’ve tried:
–using date constraints by entering offsets (-5 days and +1 day, which I see in the constraints pane for The Picnic
–creating timeline dependencies by having The Picnic be “blocked by” the planning for the Picnic, then having the Picnic block the discussion.

The Planning event appears correctly on the timeline, but I think this is because I manually changed it, while the Discussion appears a week later. (Note that I verified that my offset is for +1 day, not +1 week.)

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!
–P

#2

There could be two things that are causing this for you:

  1. You may be using the wrong constraints.

To have the events happen exactly 5 days before and 1 day after the Picnic event, the constraints need to be set to “Start equals start of” Picnic, and then enter in the appropriate offset (-5 days and 1 day).
This should move your events to the correct position.

If you had chosen “Start is before start of” with an offset of 1 day, then this would mean that the event can occur any time from 1 day after the Picnic event (so can also be 2 days after, 3 days after etc.) Therefore your event won’t move if it has already started at a position past this point.

  1. You could have the resolve constraints setting turned off

If you have this setting turned off, then the events won’t move to resolve the constraints you have set. If you open Settings (the cog icon) under the “Automatic Date Adjustment” dropdown, it needs to be set to “Resolve constraints and adjust children”.

Let us know if you still are having problems after these are set up correctly.

#3

Thanks Jess. Alas, neither of these worked, so I deleted the events before and after the Picnic, then started over. The weird thing is, I kept the fixed date of the picnic, and when I look at the Picnic event, no blocks or constraints are listed BUT the Discussion of the Picnic popped into place right after he Picnic without a date listed, as if they’re attached somewhere. (However, I could separate them in spreadsheet view, though the Discussion without a date didn’t join other events without dates, if this makes sense.) I looked everywhere & couldn’t find any place where +1 day or a date was added to the Discussion event.

I find the contingency options very confusing, starting with deciding whether it’s best to have an event block or be blocked by. So for example should I have the Picnic be the anchor: within Picnic constraints say it’s blocked by the Planning Discussion 5 days before, then have The Picnic block the Discussion event by +1 day. OR should I go into the Planning event & have it block the Picnic so it comes +5 days, then the Discussion be blocked by the Picnic by +1 day or have the Discussion blocked by the Picnic 5 days earlier within the Discussion settings.

Then there are all the before/after start/finish, exact/equals and each choice has totally different implications on its own, not to mention exponentially more when in combination with each other. :frowning:

At this point, I’d find it really useful to have the basic relationship I’m trying to create spelled out from scratch, and if I can reproduce it from start to finish, I’ll understand how to build others. Maybe this could be a useful extra bit to add to the Constraints/dependencies section in the How To guide, especially if others are getting tangled up like I am. It could just be that my brain isn’t wired this way. :slight_smile:

Thanks for reading this long, confusing post.

#4

I’m sorry that you have had trouble understanding all the different constraints and dependencies.

The block/block by isn’t really applicable in your case, which may be why it is confusing.
This is for events that need to occur in a certain order, but not tied to dates. (eg. for project management, a certain task can’t start before another is finished)

As you want your events to be tied to dates, then the Date Constraints are what you are after.

Here are the steps for you to step up the relationship you want, and hopefully this helps you understand how to set it up.

  1. Create Picnic event on the date you want the picnic
  2. Create the Planning for Picnic event.
  3. Add a date constraint to the Planning for Picnic event with the following options:
    Start equals start of Item: Picnic Offset: -5 days
  4. Create the Discussing the Picnic event
  5. Add a date constraint for the Discussing the Picnic event with the following options:
    Start equals start of Item:Picnic Offset: 1 day

Once these steps have been followed you should have the events set up on the correct dates. If you move any of them on the Timeline View, or adjust their dates, then the rest should follow.

If you are still having trouble setting this up after following these steps, then if you can send through your timeline file to support@timeline.app, then we can look through and see what is going wrong.

1 Like
#5

This is so so so helpful–thank you! It worked. It sounds like the “start equals start of” will be the most common use case for me anyway. But I’ll have to dive in to the numerous other options to fully understand the power here. Do you have advice for how to learn about these, short of trial and error (mostly error)? thanks again!

#6

I’m glad this was helpful for you, unfortunately I don’t have any specific advice on how to learn these, other than trial and error, however we will take it onboard to improve our documentation around this issue.

You can also post more here or through email if you have anymore questions.