Finish task field

Data Type    Date

Entry Type    Calculated or entered

Description    The Finish field shows the date when a task is scheduled to be completed. You can have Project calculate the finish date or you can enter it yourself.

How Calculated    Project calculates the finish date based on the start date, task duration, task dependencies, the project calendar, and other task constraints. If resources are assigned, Project also considers the resource calendar and assignment units.

If you enter a finish date for an automatically scheduled task, Project assigns a Finish No Earlier Than constraint to the task and uses your entered finish date as the constraint date. If your project schedules from the finish date, and if you enter a finish date, Project automatically applies a Finish No Later Than constraint to the task.

If you are using Project 2010, and you enter a finish date for a manually scheduled task, the date is simply entered as is, and Project does not assign a task constraint or make any other scheduling changes.

If you enter an actual finish date that is different from the scheduled finish date, Project changes the scheduled finish date to match the date in the Actual Finish field.

Best Uses    Add the Finish field to a task sheet when you want to review or filter for scheduled finish dates for tasks. The Finish field appears on the Gantt Chart view by default.

Example    You need to filter for all finish dates scheduled after March. You filter on the Finish field to see only those tasks scheduled with a finish date beyond March 31.

Remarks    In a manually scheduled task, you can enter a valid finish date, or you can enter text such as TBD or unknown. A manually scheduled task is considered a placeholder task until two of the three scheduling factors—start date, finish date, and duration—contain valid schedule information.

When you enter percent complete or actual work, Project might reschedule remaining work around the status date, and this can change the scheduled start date. If you prefer, you can leave these tracking fields in the project as originally scheduled, even if completed work is shown in the future or remaining work is shown in the past.

You can do this in the Project Options dialog box. Also, you can set the status date to a date other than today's date in the Project Information dialog box.