A project date anchors your project to a real event, like a wedding, a shoot, or a delivery deadline, so Dubsado can put it on your calendar and time your automations around it. This article covers how to set a project date manually or from a form, and how project dates show up on your calendar.

Although it isn't required, setting a project date around a specific event, like a wedding or a deliverable deadline, improves automation in Dubsado. Setting one unlocks:

Open Projects and select the client's project. On the Details tab, find the Project info card, and in the Dates row, click the Select date range field to choose a single date or a date range. The picker autosaves, so there's no separate button to click, and if you need to clear an existing date, reopen the picker and clear it there.

By default, a project date is all-day. To add specific start and end times, click Add times inside the picker. Click Clear times to remove them and return to an all-day date.

Below the date, the Show as busy switch controls whether the project date blocks your scheduler availability. Toggle it on to block new appointments from being booked during the project date range. When it's on, the label reads Show as busy. Toggle it off to keep your scheduler open during that time, and the label flips to Show as available.

Instead of opening each project to set the date by hand, you can collect it on a form so it populates automatically when your client submits. To edit a reusable form template, go to Forms ➔ Form templates. To edit a form that's already applied to a project, open the project and use the Forms tab.

Add a Date select field to the form. Click it to open its settings, and under field mapping, choose Project Date. For a start-and-end range, add two date-select fields: map one to Project Start Date and one to Project End Date.

Only short-answer and date-select fields can be mapped to project fields, so the date-select field is the one you'll use to collect a project date.

Now, whenever a client fills out the form and picks a date, it populates automatically as the project date.

Go to Events to see every project that has a project date. All projects with a date set appear on the calendar, color-coded by status.

For long-term or ongoing projects, the project spans its entire date range on the calendar. Consider setting a single meaningful date instead, such as the deliverable date or contract expiration date, to keep your calendar easier to read.

A scheduler booking creates an appointment, not a project date. The two are separate features. To set the project date, do it manually from the project, or map a date-select form field to the project date.

Yes. Click Add times inside the date picker to set start and end times, which default to 9 AM and 5 PM. Click Clear times to go back to an all-day date.

No, it's optional. But setting one unlocks calendar visibility, scheduler blocking, smart field autofill, timed payment plan reminders, and flow triggers based on the project date.