Hi I am a newbie to coda and im having such a difficult time trying to figure out how to make my start date = Dependency Date. Essentially, I am trying to use this for project management and in order to plan my projects timeline I need the start date to change based upon a change in the dependency date. My end date = start date + task duration. Since tasks can go late, or finish early - the start date of a task may change, I need a change in start date to automatically reflect upon successor tasks. I can’t imagine this is as difficult as I am making it for myself…YOU WILL BE MY HERO IF YOU SOLVE THIS
Thanks!
Hey @Ryan_Redmond welcome to the community! You can definitely do this. The best thing would be to share an example so the community can see exactly what you’re working with.
I imagine your dependency would be a Lookup type column, which references the other row in the same table. If so you would set the [Start Date] column = [Dependency].[Start Date]
It can be that easy! Hope this works for you. If you need more help share an anonymized doc with public permissions so we can see. Good luck!
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This is what happens when i try to automate…
Hi @Ryan_Redmond
I asked for your doc access to better look into.
My feeling is that perhaps your formula just need to prepend thisRow: thisRow.Dependency.StartDate.
Anyway, waiting for you sharing your doc.
Cheers!
Hey sorry - I got so pissed with coda that I started using airtable again…Haha - I do see how coda will be more beneficial though so I am back on it. I’ll send you what I have shortly. Sorry to appear as to be ignoring you.
Hi @Ryan_Redmond,
glad to hear that 
The problem with a mix of input and formula columns is the way you deal with them, as a column can’t be both.
In your case, if you want an overall consistent information about dates, you might want to add another two columns (yes…) - such as Actual Start and Actual End - and the basic rule you want to be applied: if Dependency overrides the manual date or vice versa.
So, for instance, for the Actual Start:
Dependency.Start.IfBlank(Manual Start)
At that point you only consider consistently Actual Start|End pairs.
I hope this helps.
Cheers!
Sorry for the late response - your advice worked (still a little rough around the edges in the sense of my automation not picking up on my rule consistently, but that’s just a function of my learning. I went HAM on some coda code readings for several hours - this all makes much more sense to me now…formulas are super easy and fast once you know them.
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