Everybody wants to know when work will finish. That’s why we set deadlines. But deadlines can be hard to manage, and even harder to hit. If you manage large projects and large teams, setting the right deadlines and knowing you can reach them with confidence is critical. 

LiquidPlanner helps you think about deadlines in a new way. The predictive scheduling engine takes into account your work estimates, availability, and priority to show when your projects are likely to finish, but that’s not all. You can use Target Dates to guide the scheduling engine and visualize risk in real time. 

If you need to wait until a certain date to begin working on a project, you can set a Target Start. If you need to set a deadline for completion of a project or phase, you can set a Target Finish. If your team doesn’t have enough time to complete the work before the deadline, LiquidPlanner will display a risk alert and provide insight into how to mitigate it. Target Dates provide a reference point so you can take advantage of Planning Intelligence and make adjustments to your portfolio to meet your goals. 

Setting Target Dates can be beneficial when:

• You need to know if you are likely to reach a certain deadline
• You need to know how much work won’t be completed by a certain date
• You need to wait until a certain date to begin working on a contract
•  You need to know whether to reassign or re-prioritize work when a deadline is approaching

Ready to learn how to hit your deadlines by taking advantage of Target Dates in LiquidPlanner? Check out this video:

How to Hit Your Deadlines Using Target Dates

In LiquidPlanner, Target Dates are fixed dates that guide Predictive Scheduling and show what can be accomplished within a given time frame. They enable effective decision making, helping your stakeholders better understand where the holdup is, and what changes need to be made to realistically finish on time.

Target dates can be set on all plan items: packages, folders, and tasks. When you apply them to a package or project, everything inside will inherit those dates. You can see any work that is at risk and get the schedule under control. The red at risk icon displays next to your date columns.

Target Start is the date you would like to begin. It could start later, based on the status of higher priority work. Target Finish is your date you would like to finish, or the deadline date.

Work can either Keep Scheduling past this date or it can Stop Scheduling, so it doesn’t impact any other work. You can even see the exact time you’re scheduled to finish by clicking Calculated Schedule.

Click the Schedule Risk alert icon so you can learn why you’re at danger of missing the Target Finish. Intelligent Insights call out progress, risk, and workload information so you can take action.

Target Deltas show how far you are from your targets. They calculate the difference between Expected Dates and Target Dates. Delta columns can be displayed within different views as well as dashboard widgets.

Better manage your projects and resources by using target dates, ensuring everyone is in agreement around what can be delivered by your deadline.

Want to learn more? Check out our Academy for additional lessons and content.

See you next time!