About the Task Schedule

The task schedule is a hierarchy of tasks and subtasks required to complete a project. The task schedule is where you create the project schedule, define due dates for tasks, and assign people to complete the tasks. A task is work assigned to a project member by a Project Lead. Tasks are associated with a project, but have their own lifecycle.

The topics in this section focus primarily on the tasks for a project. The task for a project concept is very similar and almost all instructions and items apply to a project concept. For the few differences between the tasks for projects and project concepts, see About Project Concepts. There are more differences for a task in a project template. Generally, the project template task contains no information related to dates or the % completion for a task, including metrics and status indicators. For a complete list of differences between the task schedule for projects and project templates, see About Project Templates.

This page discusses:

Task ID
Critical Path
Calendars
About Exporting Task Data

Task ID

The task schedule of a project maintains constant task IDs:

When the first task is created, the sequence number of that task will be 1. This sequence number will be incremented by 1 for the next task that is created.
When a task is inserted into the schedule of the root project schedule, the task ID of the task will be the incremented value of the immediately preceding task. The remaining tasks, after the level in which the task was inserted, will be resequenced accordingly.
When a task is added in the end of the task schedule of the root project schedule, the ID of the task will be the incremented value of the immediately preceding task. The remaining tasks in the schedule will be not resequenced.

For example, consider the following task schedule:


Task Name	Task ID
T1	1
---T1.1	2
T3	3
T4	4

If a new task T1.2 is added as a subtask to the task T1 by selecting the Task T1.1 and clicking the "Insert Task Above" command, then the schedule will be resequenced as follows:


Task Name	Task ID
T1	1
---T1.2	2
---T1.1	3
T3	4
T4	5

If a new task T1.3 is added in as a subtask to the task T1 by selecting Task T1 and clicking "Add Subtask" command in the schedule browser, then the schedule will be resequenced as shown below:


Task Name	Task ID
T1	1
---T1.2	2
---T1.1	3
---T1.3	4
T3	5
T4	6

If a new task T5 is added to the end of the task schedule as shown below, then the schedule will not be resequenced.


Task Name	Task ID
T1	1
---T1.2	2
---T1.1	3
---T1.3	4
T3	5
T4	6
T5	7

When an existing project is added to the root project schedule, the added project will be assigned a subsequent constant task ID based on the position into which it is inserted in the root task schedule.
The existing task schedule will be resequenced if the project is not added at the end of the root project schedule. This assignment of the Task ID to the added project will not affect the tasks that are present in the added project.
When the added project is expanded, the task under that project will have its individual sequence numbers starting from 1.

For example, consider project P1 and project P2 with the following schedule.

Task Schedule of Project P1


Task Name	Task ID
P1
--T1	1
--T2	2

Task Schedule of Project P2


Task Name	Task ID
P2
--A1	1
--A2	2

If Project P2 is already added as a sub project under Project P1 you can use "Copy- Paste As Child". If Project P2 is not a sub project under Project P1, then you can use "'Copy Partial Schedule".

Critical Path

Critical tasks are identified in red. These are tasks with no room to slip on the critical path. The critical path of the project is the sequence of tasks from beginning to end that takes the longest time. No task on the critical path can take more time without affecting the end date of the project. In other words, none of the tasks on the critical path has any slack.

Following are some considerations about the critical path:

In a project with two tasks, and no dependencies, the critical path is the one with the longest time to finish. If both tasks have the same number of days to finish, both are critical tasks.
The critical path can change from one series of tasks to another over time as tasks are completed and as tasks in another series of tasks are delayed. However, there is always one overall critical path for any project schedule.
Because the task schedule is only calculated based on estimate start and end dates, the critical path is updated only if the estimated start and end dates of a task are modified.
Any task on the critical path is a critical task since it must be completed for the project to finish on schedule. The task start date, duration, and task dependencies can affect whether a task becomes critical.
Overall critical path and float values are calculated by considering the subprojects and their schedule structure. While calculating the float values and critical path, task calendar preference is considered and float values will be calculated by skipping non-working days.
A root project has one critical path that also references all of its subprojects. If you navigate to a subproject, the critical path and float is displayed relative to that subproject.

Calendars

Multiple calendars may exist for a project. A task can have only one calendar associated with it. For an explanation of how calendars are evaluated, see Calendars.

About Exporting Task Data

Project members can export project and task schedule information. The export file is formatted according to the import file format requirements (see About Projects), so after editing the information in another app, you can import it back into Project Management.

You can also export the data displayed on the Task Schedule page, both in the Task view and Baseline view.