Track the critical path in a sheet

As task dates or inter-task dependencies change, the sheet’s critical path can be impacted. Smartsheet automatically updates and highlights the tasks on the current critical path.

Only paid users who are sheet Owners or Admins can enable dependencies in Project Settings to display the critical path. Anyone with Editor or higher-level permissions can display or hide the critical path.

What is the critical path?

The critical path is the longest sequence of tasks (from start to finish) that must be completed on time to stay on schedule and avoid project delays. It's determined using task start dates, end dates, duration, and dependencies (task predecessors).

All tasks and milestones that comprise a project's critical path are highlighted in red in the Gantt view.

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Set up a sheet to display the critical path

To use a critical path, your sheet must be in Gantt view.

1. Select the Edit Sheet Settings icon 
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   in the top right corner of the sheet, and set Dependencies to activated.
2. In your sheet, assign each task a start date, and an end date or duration.
3. For each task that depends on another task, assign that other task as a predecessor.
4. To show your project's critical path, select the Show Critical Path icon  in the upper-right corner of the sheet.
   
   

Tips and troubleshooting

• The critical path appears on child rows. If the rows are collapsed and you want to view the child rows, right-select the primary column and select Expand All.
• If you want to show only rows on the critical path, apply a filter for that condition. Refer to the image below as an example of a filter to show critical path rows.