Set default date based on date other date column

Question

I'm fairly new to SharePoint and I'm still learning the terminology so please excuse

I have 2 Date Time columns in a SharePoint list, Date Received and Due Date. The Due Date is supposed to be 30 days from the Date Received date. If I make the Due Date a Calculated Column, it's fairly straightforward.

=[Date Received] + 30

However, calculated columns can't be modified by users. In this case, I need to allow users to change the Due Date column which isn't and make the default value for the Due Date using the Calculated Value option. My issue is that an error occurs when I try to use the same formula in the Calculated Value input box. Is it not possible to reference other columns in a formula to calculate the default value of a Date column?

Answer 1

A default value formula cannot reference another column because the list form does not support a dynamic recalculation of the default formula.

If you need to set a default value based on another column, and still have that user editable, you can use InfoPath to customise the form, or if you don't have that, use Javascript / jQuery to set the field.

Answer 2

You can use a workflow to handle this. The workflow should start on item update.

Use an if condition to check

if currentitem:DateReceived equals empty
     Update currentitem:DueDate = currentitem:DateReceived + 30

I used following to get this working in both New and Edit use cases

Variable: date - This should be string type and CurrentItem:DueDate should return ShortDate

Variable: date1 - This should be date time type.

Update - This should set current item DueDate with value in variable: date1