Critical Path and Critical Task Indicator

Last Modified On: January 7, 2025

The critical path looks at all the tasks that are putting the project plan at risk. These are tasks that have a direct impact on the Project Finish Date.

The Critical Task indicator is a checkbox that lets you know if the task is considered critical to the Project Finish Date. It is an automated field, meaning that Inspire Planner automatically sets the checkbox to true or false, depending on whether the task falls within the Project Critical path.

Please Note:

• For projects in Gantt VisualForce, the Project Scheduling Mode has to be set to "Automatic" for the Critical Tasks to calculate and update correctly. For projects in Gantt LWC, the scheduling mode does not matter.
   
• Once a task is marked as "Complete" (or an equivalent custom status), it will set the Critical checkbox to FALSE but will remain highlighted in the Gantt to denote that the task is part of the overall critical path.

To see the "Critical" column, simply right-click on any of the column headings, go to Columns and select "Critical".

You can drag and drop the "Critical" column heading to re-order and move it to your desired area. 

To view the critical path in the Gantt chart, click on the Display Project Critical Path icon within the Project Toolbar.

Critical tasks are highlighted in orange and the predecessor lines are displayed in red.

If you have time tracking-only tasks within the Project and do not want these to be included in the Critical Path, set the Finish Date to 1 day prior to the Project Finish Date.