Enable Dependencies and use Predecessors

Once you enableDependencies, your sheet has the following functionality:

• Altering the start or end date on the predecessor immediately adjusts the dates of any dependents.
• Entering any two values for theStart Date,End Date, andDurationcolumns automatically calculates the third value.
• Start Date,End Date,Duration, and% Completeroll up to parent rows as summary calculations.
• When you enter aDurationandPredecessorvalue,Start DateandEnd Datepopulate automatically based on theWorking Daysschedule established in theProject Settings.
• Parent row values are read-only, as they are calculated automaticallybased on values in the child rows.
• You can highlight theCritical Pathin the Gantt chart to visualize what drives the overall project duration.

Enable or disable Dependencies in a project

To enable dependencies in your sheet:

1. Click the dropdown arrowunder any column header and selectEdit Project Settings.
   
2. In the Project Settings form, underDependencies, select theDependencies Enabledcheckbox.
   
   
   
   New options appear in the Project Settings form.
   
3. Select which columns to use as thePredecessorcolumn and theDurationcolumn.
   If you do not have columns set up for this, Smartsheet will insert columns namedPredecessorsandDurationfor you when you enable dependencies.

停止使用依赖项和删除automation from the sheet:

1. Click the dropdown arrowunder any column header and selectEdit Project Settings.
2. Uncheck theDependencies Enabledbox, and then clickOK应用更改。

Work with Duration and Predecessors

When you enter aDurationorPredecessorvalue in a row, theStart DateandEnd Datepopulate automatically based on theWorking Daysschedule established in theProject Settings.

Duration

Duration is the amount of working time between the start and end dates. The system can automatically calculateDurationbased on a start and end date, or you can manually enter it in theDurationcolumn.

When you calculateDurationautomatically using start and end dates, your duration is returned in days. For other units, enterDurationmanually.

The following table includes examples of how to format values in the duration column.

Duration	Format
Weeks	2w
Whole working days	4d
Partial working days	3.5d
Hours	7h
Minutes	60m
Seconds	500s
Combination	4h 30m

Elapsed time can be used in theDurationcolumn to ignore non-working time (including non-working days and holidays). Lead with an “e” to indicate duration in elapsed time (e3d, e5h).

Predecessors

UsePredecessorsto create dependencies between items.

Create a Dependency by specifying a predecessor

1. Find the row for which you want to create a predecessor.
2. In thePredecessorcolumn, type the row number for the item that must occur first.

Keep the following tips in mind:

• Make dependencies on multiple predecessors by entering the row numbers into the cell and separating them by a comma (as in row 7 in the image).
• Smartsheet takes all predecessors into account when determining the dates of the dependent. For example: OnFinish-to-Startrelationships, Smartsheet schedules the dependent's start date after the latest occurring end date of all predecessors.
• Adding predecessors to a parent row in hierarchy applies the predecessor to all of its child rows due to the parent roll up functionality.
• This predecessor relationship prevents direct changes in the dates in child rows. For example, if a Finish-to-Start predecessor is set in a parent row, all of the child tasks start on the same date regardless of the predecessors set at the child row level. To work around this, set predecessors at the lowest-level child rows whenever possible.

Change the attributes for a predecessor relationship

By default, when you specify a predecessor, aFinish-to-Startrelationship is established between items.

To make changes to the relationships between dependents and their predecessors, click编辑前辈(click any cell in thePredecessorscolumn). From the编辑前辈form, you can change the relationship type or addlag time.

You can choose from the following dependency types:

• Finish-to-Start (FS): Start after the predecessor finishes.
• Finish-to-Finish (FF): Finish at the same time the predecessor finishes.
• Start-to-Start (SS): Start at the same time the predecessor starts.
• Start-to-Finish (SF): Finish before the predecessor starts.

Lag Time and Lead Time

To represent a period of inactivity or overlap between the predecessor and dependent, you can use Lag Time. For instance, entering 1d into theLag(days) field for aFinish-to-Startdependency causes the dependents to start an additional working day after its predecessor finishes.

To schedule the dependents to start before the predecessor finishes, use a negative number (for example, -1d) to create Lead Time.

注意:您can enter Lag and Lead Time in increments of weeks, whole working days, partial working days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, or a combination (in similar fashion to theDurationexamples).