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I need to create some tasks that have no constant duration, start and finish date. According to my researches online, the all need is "Hammock Task".

Lets say I have a task named T1 and have 2 milestones named M1 and M2. I want to set the start date of T1 as the date of M1 with 1 month delay and set the finish date of T1 as date of M2 with 2 months delay. The start and finish dates of T1 depend on M1 and M2.

I copied the dates of M1 and M2 and "Paste Special -> Paste Link" to T1. It works well until I add some lags to task with predecessors. The problem is after these steps, the duration of T1 changes all by itself. I mean that increases/decreases without any control even I don't touch mouse or keyboard. It just updates the duration every 5 - 10 seconds.

Rachel Hettinger
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Ahmet Çöl
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  • Note: As this question does not have to do with programming, it should not be on this site. The [Project Management stack exchange site](https://pm.stackexchange.com/) would be the appropriate place. – Rachel Hettinger Oct 21 '19 at 16:00

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You almost had the solution. The trick is that the hammock task, T1, should not have any predecessors or successors. To get the lags you need, create new dummy lag tasks and paste-link the dates of those tasks.

In this example, Lag1 is a task with a 30-day elapsed duration (e.g. calendar days) that happens after the M1 milestone task and Lag2 is a task with a 60-day elapsed duration that happens after the M2 milestone task. This gives us the needed dates for the hammock task, T1. Paste-link the Finish date of Lag1 to the Start date of T1 and paste-link the Finish date of Lag2 to the Finish date of T1.

Now by changing either of the green cells, the duration of the hammock task (blue cell) updates automatically. (Note that T1 has no predecessors or successor--yellow cells).

schedule demonstrating a hammock task

Reference: support.office.com/en-us/article/prj-how-to-build-a-hammock-task

Note: When using OLE links, it is helpful to insert the Linked Fields field to see which tasks have a link; unfortunately there is no direct way to know which fields are linked. Also, edit the ribbon to add the Edit Links button which displays this dialog box.

Edit Links dialog box

Rachel Hettinger
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  • Is there a field or project object model attribute that would let us set or find the paste-links, since they aren't predecessors or successors? – Eric Christoph Oct 23 '19 at 12:27
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    Insert the **Linked Fields** field to identify which tasks have an OLE link (see updated image). Unfortunately, there is no direct way to tell *which* field is linked. Also, customize the ribbon to add the **Edit Links** button to show the dialog box where links can be viewed and edited. – Rachel Hettinger Oct 23 '19 at 15:45
  • That's cool! Is there an indirect way to discover exactly what the links are? – Eric Christoph Oct 24 '19 at 16:04
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    Yes, if you double-click on a cell that is linked the active selection will jump to the linked cell. If it's not a linked cell, the Task Information dialog box will appear. – Rachel Hettinger Oct 24 '19 at 18:21