Automation: Preserving Start Date When Updating Due Date to Today()

Question

I’m working with dynamic dates in Automation and am running into some unexpected behavior. I’m hoping someone else has tackled something similar.

Here’s the setup:

* Trigger: When task status changes to All Completed
* Action: Change due date to Today()

The due date portion is working exactly as expected.

The issue I’m seeing is with duration and start date behavior. When the automation updates the due date to Today(), the task’s original duration is preserved. Because of that, the start date rolls backward from today.

What I was expecting instead was for the start date to remain unchanged, since the task owner wouldn’t have realistically started the work earlier than the originally scheduled start date.

I’m trying to avoid start dates shifting earlier than originally planned when using dynamic due dates, and I’m wondering if there’s a way to:

* Lock or preserve the original start date, or
* Prevent duration from driving the start date backward when the due date is updated via automation

I feel like I may be overlooking a configuration option or a smarter automation pattern here. Has anyone implemented something similar or found a workaround?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

David Simmington · Answer

Got it. What you're seeing is expected behavior from Wrike’s scheduling engine. When Due Date changes, Wrike preserves Duration and recalculates the Start Date. Automation simply triggers that same logic.

If your goal is to visualize actual task duration while keeping dependency timelines accurate, it's generally better not to modify the planned Start/Due dates. Instead, store actual completion metrics in custom fields (for example, Actual Finish = Today() and Actual Duration = Actual Finish − Planned Start).

That way your dependency-driven schedule remains intact while still giving you clear reporting on how long work actually took.

Kelsey Rudolph · Answer

@David Simmington thank you for your thoughtful response.

I wanted to add a bit of context for our specific use case. This automation was meant to solve two things.

First, we wanted the timeline to adjust automatically when tasks are completed, either extending or pulling dates in, without manual intervention, since we rely heavily on dependencies in Wrike.

Second, with those adjustments happening, we wanted an easy visual of how long tasks actually take. Up to this point, I’ve been leaning on the Completed Date field for that insight, but we were looking to shift toward using the actual date adjustments instead.

David Simmington · Answer

Hi @Kelsey Rudolph,

What you’re seeing is standard Wrike scheduling behavior: when a task has Start + Due + Duration, and you move Due, Wrike tries to preserve Duration, so it recalculates Start = Due − Duration. Automation is just triggering the same date engine.

Option A (best if your goal is “actual completion date”)

Don’t overwrite Due Date at all. Use Completed date for reporting instead. Wrike already stamps completion when status becomes completed, so you get “finished on” without distorting planned dates.

Option B (automation workaround: capture start, then restore it)

If you must set Due Date to Today(), use a date custom field as a temporary/baseline store and then set Start back after the Due change.

Pattern (single rule, multiple actions):

-Action: Set custom field (Date): Original Start = Field("Start date")

-Action: Change Due Date = Today()

-Action: Change Start Date = Field("Original Start")

Wrike’s automation formulas support Field("name") references and Today() for date actions, which is what enables this approach. This preserves your planned start while still forcing the due date to today. If you don’t want to permanently keep Original Start, you can leave it populated (as a baseline) or add another rule to clear it later with Empty().

Option C (force a milestone-on-complete)

If “completed today” is what you need and duration is irrelevant after completion, you can set Start = Today() and Due = Today() on completion, turning it into a same-day item. This intentionally discards the prior duration.