Mapping Fields That Depend on Each Other

Question: Why after each cycle of synchronisation, when one field is updated, another field gets out of sync, and the data can never be properly synchronised?

Answer: The fields can become misaligned due to MS Project's internal logic and field dependencies. Mapping interdependent fields such as Finish, Actual Finish, Predecessors, %complete, and Actual Work at the same time often causes recalculation and conflicts. This is the internal MS Project logic that Ceptah Bridge cannot change or control.

To resolve this, do the following:

1. Research the MS Project documentation to better understand how the fields that you mapped affect each other. Reproduce the behaviour that you saw during synchronisation without Ceptah Bridge by changing the fields manually and observing the results.
2. Map the fields in such a way that there are no circular dependencies. Usually this means unmapping one of the fields.

For example, you cannot map Start, Finish and Work at the same time, make the task auto-scheduled, and expect that the results will be consistent. MS Project will keep recalculating the fields unless Finish in Jira is exactly what MS Project thinks it should be given the Start and Work, which is highly unlikely in practice.

To fix this, you can either unmap Finish or, even better, change the direction for this field so that it is calculated by MS Project and pushed back to Jira. Alternatively, you can make the task manually scheduled, which will disable some of the MS Project logic and allow arbitrary Start, Finish and Work values (still, possibly after 2 cycles of synchronisation).