Anyone have a proven template or setup to align hardscape, planting windows, and permit milestones on one schedule? We’re phasing a 4-acre civic plaza in Q2 with 12–16 week tree lead times and NYC planting windows, and MS Project isn’t handling seasonality well — curious if Smartsheet or P6 workflows you like are shareable.
In P6 I set up a ‘Planting Window’ activity calendar with only the NYC spring/fall windows as working days and assign it just to planting tasks; procurement is a separate chain with an 84–112 day lag so it rolls to the next allowed window automatically. It’s been reliable, but watch for negative float if permits slip — are you open to P6 or locked into Smartsheet?
I’ve had luck in Smartsheet by modeling planting windows as milestone “gates” (“Spring Open”/“Fall Close”) and linking install tasks SS to the gate with lag; add a simple flag formula if Finish drifts past “Fall Close” so you get alerts, and use the Calendar App to visualize it (https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/834734-use-predecessors-to-automate-project-schedules). For lead times, run procurement as its own chain feeding the gate so slips show up before crews mobilize — like putting traffic lights before the intersection. Do you want permit milestones to hard-stop tasks or just throw warnings?
, MS Project + seasonality drives me nuts — what’s worked in Smartsheet is a tiny helper sheet listing NYC planting windows, then in the main schedule use INDEX/MATCH to “snap” Planting Start to the next window and set it = MAX(Permit, ProcureFinish from your 12–16 wk lead, NextWindowOpen) so everything shifts cleanly. Hardscape stays SS to Planting Start, and a variance column flags when Q2 slips; quick ref: INDEX Function | Smartsheet Learning Center. Want me to share a stripped template?