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!
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.
