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What this does

Automatically calculate expected task dates based on durations, dependencies, and milestone targets. Auto-scheduling saves you from manually adjusting every task date when the plan changes.

Current access and functionality

• Verified against the current impact-web, impact-client, and impact-marketplace code on 2026-05-07.
• In impact-web, users must be signed in and working in an active workspace. Navigation and write actions are role-, permission-, and entitlement-aware; unavailable modules are hidden or disabled instead of being universally visible.
• Auto-scheduling is available from project planning surfaces in web and depends on project/task scheduling data and the user being allowed to manage the project.
• Project creation and management are available to company admins, owners, project coordinators, and project managers according to the permission matrix. Project members may only see assigned or permitted project content.
• Task access is scoped by workspace, project, team, and assignment. Users can act on tasks they are assigned to or permitted to manage; project managers and team leaders have broader controls for their areas.

Before you start

• You must have a project with tasks that have durations set (action, verify, and/or accept durations).
• Task dependencies (prerequisites) should be defined for best results.
• You must be the project manager.

Steps

1. Open the project.
2. Ensure your tasks have:
   • Durations set for each workflow stage (Action, Verify, Accept).
   • Prerequisites defined where tasks depend on others completing first.
   • Milestone links if tasks must complete before a milestone target date.
3. Click Auto-Schedule (found in the project toolbar or scheduling section).
4. IMPACT calculates Expected Start and Expected End dates for each task based on:
   • Task durations.
   • Dependency chains — a task cannot start until its prerequisites are complete.
   • Milestone target dates — tasks linked to a milestone are scheduled to finish before the target.
5. Review the proposed schedule. Expected dates are shown alongside baseline dates so you can see variances.
6. Confirm to apply the schedule.

Tips

• Set baseline dates first, then use auto-scheduling to generate expected dates. This lets you compare planned vs expected timelines.
• If a task has no prerequisites, it will be scheduled to start as early as possible.
• Run auto-scheduling again whenever you add new tasks, change durations, or modify dependencies — it recalculates the entire schedule.
• Use the burndown chart after scheduling to visualise whether the project is on track.
• You can manually override expected dates for specific tasks after auto-scheduling. These manual overrides are preserved unless you re-run auto-scheduling.

Common issues

• Issue: Auto-scheduling produces unexpected dates — Fix: Check the dependency chain. A single long-duration task in the critical path can push everything back. Also verify that durations are set in the correct unit (days vs hours).
• Issue: Tasks are scheduled past the milestone target date — Fix: The total duration of tasks in the dependency chain exceeds the time available before the milestone. Either reduce durations, add resources (parallelise tasks), or move the milestone date.
• Issue: Some tasks are not affected by auto-scheduling — Fix: Tasks without durations or prerequisites may not be rescheduled. Ensure all relevant tasks have durations set.

Related

• How to create a project
• How to create and assign tasks
• How to manage milestones and deliverables