Pull in Current (Today's Date) as a variable or formula to filter

Home Forums Discussion Forum Pull in Current (Today's Date) as a variable or formula to filter

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    • #415502
      Matt Shane
      Guest

      I have tried using the NOW () as well as tried creating a Custom field to pull into a filter to prevent having to edit and updating to today’s date in the filter and these methods don’t seem to work. So my filter is comparing “[Start] greater than or equal to NOW (today’s date)” – with out having to manually change and enter in several filters as I created a custom report based on the filter (which is pulling in 3 individual project into 1 Master Plan. Thus, the need to pull in today’s date via a variable or formula. Have Project 2013 – but other colleagues have Project 2010. Any help. Thanks!

    • #415503
      Larry Christofaro
      Participant

      I’m not sure what you are seeing that is wrong, but I’ll toss this out for you to check. Formulas update when the project is open and saved, so if the project isn’t updated at the same time as your report then the result of Today will not be up to date. You might need to put the formula into your report and recalculate the results. Does that help answer your question?

    • #415505
      Matt Shane
      Guest

      Thanks for the tip on saving project else the date not up to date. Will try this. I really need this function in the filter and not the report but good to know for backup plan. I might have to look into this option after trying a few other options (with the filter first). So if you do find out anything else. Thanks again!

    • #415506
      Daryl Deffler
      Participant

      Matt
      What are you trying to accomplish? There may be other, sometimes easier, ways to accomplish your end objective.

    • #415509
      Matt Shane
      Guest

      I am trying to create a custom report (similar to the Project Milestone report) that looks at today’s date to determine if tasks as well as milestones (have a detailed task report but also a higher level milestone reporting) or past due because the “built-in” project past due and due in next month can produce duplication (when the task or milestone) is past due – it reports on past due & due next month. However, this does not happen with I compare and filter based on start date being less or greater than today. In addition, I have 3 individual plans as well as one “Master” plan (that pulls in all 3 individual) where I have to report out the individual plan level as well as at the master plan level. Regarding the individual, I another filter that looks at past due and upcoming in the next 2 weeks – but also makes sure not 100% (completed task). Bottom line, I have several filters and reports (where manually change dates) to compare against today’s date and a date 2 weeks out. So if can be done to pull in the current date via variable or formula, it would fix all my problems.

      That brings in another questions – Is there a way to provide a date 2 weeks out from today – ex: Now () plus 14 -or- Now (D+14)??

    • #415558
      Ismet Kocaman
      Guest

      Matt,

      Regarding your first post; Project 2010 and later versions no longer allows you to compare the Start field with the fields containing date data in a custom filter, by the introduction of manual scheduling. So, provided that Date1 contains the current date (say, it has the formula [Current Date] or now()), a filtering condition like “[Start] greater than or equal to [Date1]” does not work. You can use “[Scheduled Start] greater than or equal to [Date1]”. The Start field is now a pseudo-date field as it can also hold text information.

      Date1 may contain [Current Date], or now(), or Date(), but both now() and Date() get the data from the computer’s clock. So you have flexibility of entering your current date with [Current Date] in order to test some scenarios.

      Pls also watch this video to see how to insert the current date to a graphical report (Project 2013 and later):
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtuTYoELwM8

      — Ismet

    • #415564
      Ismet Kocaman
      Guest

      I almost forgot to mention that a filter condition like “Start is greater than or equal to Date1”, where Date1 has no square brackets around it, just compares the information in the Start field with the text “Date1” and MS Project does not complain about it. So pls do not forget to include square brackets around the field name in the Value(s) column.

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