Project task relationships and dependencies

The Project Management application enables you a create parent-child relationships between tasks and dependencies, such as finish-to-start and finish-to-finish, between tasks.

This table explains the types of task relationships and dependencies that you can create.

Table 1. Project relationships and dependencies
Concept	Description
Finish-to-start dependency	A dependency that indicates that a task must not be started until its predecessor finishes.
Start-to-start dependency	A dependency that indicates that a successor task must not be started until the predecessor task has started.
Start-to-finish dependency	A dependency that indicates that a successor must not be finished until the predecessor task starts.
Finish-to-finish dependency	A dependency that indicates that a task must not be finished until another task finishes.
Lag time	A manually specified time break between predecessor and successor tasks.
Parent task	A project task with smaller tasks, referred to as child tasks, underneath it. Child tasks break down the work of a parent task into more manageable subsets. Certain fields for child tasks, such as planned end date, roll up and affect the same field in the parent task.
Child task	A project task that is a subset of a larger task. Child task start dates cannot occur before the start date of the parent task.
Rollup task	Another term for a parent task in the context of aggregating child task items, such as effort or resources, into a larger parent task calculation. All fields on rollup task forms are read-only.
Roll down	State changes roll down from the project to project tasks, and from parent tasks to child tasks.

Note: Only one relationship can exist between two tasks.

The Project Management application provides several properties that control how tasks are calculated and behave. See Project property for more information.

Project task relationships and dependencies

The Project Management application enables you a create parent-child relationships between tasks and dependencies, such as finish-to-start and finish-to-finish, between tasks.

This table explains the types of task relationships and dependencies that you can create.

Table 1. Project relationships and dependencies
Concept	Description
Finish-to-start dependency	A dependency that indicates that a task must not be started until its predecessor finishes.
Start-to-start dependency	A dependency that indicates that a successor task must not be started until the predecessor task has started.
Start-to-finish dependency	A dependency that indicates that a successor must not be finished until the predecessor task starts.
Finish-to-finish dependency	A dependency that indicates that a task must not be finished until another task finishes.
Lag time	A manually specified time break between predecessor and successor tasks.
Parent task	A project task with smaller tasks, referred to as child tasks, underneath it. Child tasks break down the work of a parent task into more manageable subsets. Certain fields for child tasks, such as planned end date, roll up and affect the same field in the parent task.
Child task	A project task that is a subset of a larger task. Child task start dates cannot occur before the start date of the parent task.
Rollup task	Another term for a parent task in the context of aggregating child task items, such as effort or resources, into a larger parent task calculation. All fields on rollup task forms are read-only.
Roll down	State changes roll down from the project to project tasks, and from parent tasks to child tasks.

Note: Only one relationship can exist between two tasks.

The Project Management application provides several properties that control how tasks are calculated and behave. See Project property for more information.

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