Deadline Dates

(Formerly known as Promise Dates)

If you are aiming to complete something by a specific date, you can set a Deadline date on that plan item via the Options area within the edit pane.   

It's important to understand that deadline dates do not drive or affect your task dates in any way.  Task dates are calculated by LiquidPlanner independent of any deadline that might be associated to the task.  Deadline dates simply trigger alerts to let you know when you are at risk of missing the deadline. 

The deadline date is shown in the schedule view as a black diamond.  When a deadline is set on a container, all items in that container inherit that same Deadline date as shown by the gray diamonds:

It is best practice to put your deadline dates on containers (projects, folders or packages), and maybe on key tasks as well.  

At-risk alerts

A deadline will trigger an alert when the finish date for your work slips close to the deadline date. 

In the scenario below, the Brochure Project is at risk because we added an additional test task that pushed the final task past the deadline date.  In addition to the red schedule bars, you see alert icons in the left margin.  Clicking on those icons will give you a written description of the risk.  

Don't miss these other scheduling options: setting a delay date, putting an item on hold, and setting the max effort for a plan item.