Recipe Overview
Built into GUIDEcx is the ability to make a task dependent on another task, a task group, a milestone, or the completion of an earlier template. For example, if Task 2 is dependent on Task 1, when Task 1 is marked Done (is finished), Task 2 starts (a.k.a. “The task goes live”). When a task starts its task assignment email is sent to the assignee. This type of dependency is known as a Finish-to-Start dependency.
The "Set Finish-to-Start Lag Across GUIDEcx Tasks" recipe provides you the ability to include a lag specifying that Task 2 should start some number of days after Task 1 is finished.
NOTE: Only one “Finish-to-Start with Lag Dependency” recipe is needed to work across all projects in your organization. Also, you do not need to make any modifications to the recipe.
Integration Setup
Prerequisites: An Admin license in GUIDEcx
Installing the Recipe
Follow the steps outlined in the video below to install the recipe:
Get Your Template Ready for this integration:
Within your template:
Add a “Lag Task” between Task 1 and Task 2. Name this lag task the same as the source task, with “(Lag Task)” added as a suffix (e.g. “Kickoff Call (Lag Task)”.)
Set the duration of the lag task to be equal to the number of days of lag you desire.
Designate the destination task (e.g. “Create User Accounts”) to be dependent on the lag task. It’s also a good idea to make the lag task have a visibility of internal hidden.
Example:
The images below show two examples.
In Milestone1 when a user marks “Kickoff Call” as done, the task “Create User Accounts” will start 1 day later. This is achieved by setting the duration of “Kickoff Call (Lag Task)” to 1.
In Milestone2 when a user marks “Kickoff Call” as done, the task “Create User Accounts” will start 2 days later. This is achieved by setting the duration of “Kickoff Call (Lag Task)” to 2.
Here is how this template will look on a live project, which converts the task durations to start/due dates. Note the lag task in the first milestone is due one day after it starts (representing a lag of 1 day) while the lag task in the second milestone is due two days after it starts (representing a lag of 2 days).
Here is the view once a user marks the two Kickoff Call tasks as done. The recipe will update the first lag task to done on August 9th and the second lag task to done on August 10th.
Starting the Recipe
From within Recipe Builder, click the 3-dot menu to the right of the recipe and select "Start Recipe". The Set Finish-to-Start Lag Across GUIDEcx Tasks Recipe is now live.
Recipe Testing
Follow these steps to test the recipe:
Create a project with your template. Use a duration of 1 for the lag task.
Update the source task (e.g. “Kickoff Call”) to done
The following day you will see that the recipe has updated the lag task to done, which has made the destination task go live.