Skip to content
Free Excel Tutorials
  • Home
  • Excel For Beginners
  • Excel Intermediate
  • Advanced Excel For Experts

Data Analysis

  • Error Bars in Excel
  • Create Scatter Chart in Excel
  • Subtotal function in Excel
  • Conditional Formatting Rules in Excel
  • How To Insert and Customize Sparklines in Excel

References

  • How to get last row in numeric data in Excel
  • Find closest match in Excel
  • How to use Excel COLUMN Function
  • VLOOKUP function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Last row number in range

Data Validations

  • Excel Data validation exists in list
  • Excel Data validation with conditional list
  • Excel Data validation date in next 30 days
  • Prevent invalid data entering in specific cells
  • Excel Data validation only dates between

How to calculate project start date based on end date in Excel

by

To calculate a project start date or custom date based on an end date and duration in days, you can use the WORKDAY function.

Note: WORKDAY function does not count the start date as a workday.

Formula

=WORKDAY(start,-days,holidays)

Explanation

In the example shown, the formula in E5 is:

=WORKDAY(C5,-D5,holidays)

where “holidays” is the named range G5:G9.

How this formula works

This formula is uses the WORKDAY function, which returns a date in the future or past, based on start date and required work days. WORKDAY automatically excludes weekends, and can also exclude holidays if provided as a range of dates.

In the example shown, the project end date is in column C, and days is in column D. The end date represents a due date or target date, and days represents duration in work days. In column E, the WORKDAY function calculates a date by which the project must start in order to finish by the end date.

In this case, we need to count backwards from the end date, so we supply days as a negative number. For holidays, we provide the named range”holidays”, which includes the dates in G5:G9. The dates will not be included as workdays.

With a negative value for days, WORKDAY moves in time from the end date, taking into account weekends and holidays, and returns December 19, 2018 as the start date. If holidays are not provided, the same formula returns a start date of December 24.

Custom workdays

If your schedule requires custom workdays (i.e. weekdays are not Monday-Friday) you can substitute the WORKDAY.INTL function for WORKDAY. For example, to calculate a start date for a project where workdays include Saturday, you could use:

=WORKDAY.INTL(C5,-D5,11,holidays)

WORKDAY.INTL can be configured in many ways.

Post navigation

Previous Post:

Get day from date in Excel

Next Post:

Calculate loan interest in given year in Excel

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Learn Basic Excel

Ribbon
Workbook
Worksheets
Format Cells
Find & Select
Sort & Filter
Templates
Print
Share
Protect
Keyboard Shortcuts

Categories

  • Charts
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Validation
  • Excel Functions
    • Cube Functions
    • Database Functions
    • Date and Time Functions
    • Engineering Functions
    • Financial Functions
    • Information Functions
    • Logical Functions
    • Lookup and Reference Functions
    • Math and Trig Functions
    • Statistical Functions
    • Text Functions
    • Web Functions
  • Excel VBA
  • Excel Video Tutorials
  • Formatting
  • Grouping
  • Others

Logical Functions

  • Nested IF function example in Excel
  • How to use Excel NOT Function
  • Not Equal To ‘<>‘ operator in Excel
  • Invoice status with nested if in Excel
  • How to use Excel OR Function

Date Time

  • Get project end date in Excel
  • Get month from date in Excel
  • Two ways to sum time over 30 minutes in Excel
  • Calculate days remaining in Excel
  • DAY function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation

Grouping

  • Group arbitrary text values in Excel
  • Map text to numbers in Excel
  • Map inputs to arbitrary values in Excel
  • Group numbers with VLOOKUP in Excel
  • How to randomly assign people to groups in Excel

General

  • How to calculate decrease by percentage in Excel
  • 231 Keyboard Shortcut Keys In Excel
  • 44 Practical Excel IF function Examples
  • 3D SUMIF for multiple worksheets in Excel
  • How to Delete Cells, Row and Rows in Excel
© 2023 xlsoffice . All Right Reserved. | Teal Smiles | Abbreviations And Their Meaning