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Tasks

When a job is created, it will create a preliminary schedule based the start date and end date of the job as well a the contents of the workflow itself.

What are Tasks?

Tasks are the smallest building block, but critical to the completion of any workflow within a company. In TACTIC | Workflow, Tasks define the steps that need to be performed in order to complete a Deliverable. As explained in section 2.3.3. Deliverables, Tasks are created and associated to Deliverables based on the selected Workflow upon saving the Order form. They can be viewed and modified from a variety of views within the application. Tasks have 5 primary pieces of data:

  • A Process (The name of the Task)
  • An Assignee (The user assigned to perform the Task)
  • A Status (The progress or state that the Task is in i.e. In Progress or Complete)
  • Bid Start (The start date of the Task)
  • Bid End (The due date of the Task)

Assigning Tasks to Users

Tasks can be assigned to users using the “Assigned” column from any of the following views:

Order Details (Section 2.4. Using Orders, Task subtab in the view by clicking the Detail button in Orders > All Orders view) Deliverable Details (Section 2.5. Using Deliverables, Task subtab in the view by clicking the Detail button in Orders > All Deliverables view) All Tasks (Tasks > All Tasks)

The most common place for user assignment would occur in the Order Details view right after the Order and Deliverables are created from the New Order form, since the view pops up right after you save a new Order. After Order submission, it gives you the opportunity to immediately start assigning the Tasks for each Deliverable to the users. However, you can add and edit the user assigned to a Task from any of these views. To do this, click on the specific row for the Task under the “Assigned” column and select the user from the drop down list. An example is shown in Figure 13: Assigning a User from Order Details View. The drop down list is the list of all users in the application. Select one and click on the save button to assign that user to the Task.

Once the Task is assigned, any user can go to the “My Tasks” view under Tasks > My Tasks. This view displays the Tasks specific to that user based on the Task assignment.

Figure 13: Assigning a User from the Order Details View

Task Statuses

Figure 14: Editing Task Status

Note: The other views listed in section 3.1.1. Assigning Tasks to Users are also available to update statuses, however, the quickest and easiest way to locate your Tasks and update them is from the My Tasks view.

There are key default Task statuses that trigger other actions in the system. A list of the statuses and the corresponding actions are summarized in Table 1: Key Default Task Statuses and Actions below.

Pending

The first Task in any Workflow, by default, has its status set to “Pending” when the associated Deliverable is first created in the New Order form. The rest of the Tasks will have no status set.

Once a Task gets set to “Complete” or “Approved”, the next Task or Tasks in the Workflow will have its status automatically set to “Pending” to signal the Tasks that should be started next.

In Progress

Setting the status of first Task in the Workflow to “In Progress” sets the Start Date of the Deliverable to the current date and time and re-schedule all of the Task Bid Start and Bid End Dates between the new Start Date and original Due Date set for the Deliverable. If this is the first Deliverable being worked on, it will also set the Start Date of the Order to the current date and time.

The “In Progress” status indicates that a Task is currently being worked on by the assigned user.

Reject

This status is specific to Approval Tasks. See section 8.5. Types of Nodes for more information.

If the Approval Task gets set to “Reject”, this indicates that the content or Assets that the user was approving needs to be edited before it continues through the Workflow. On a “Reject” status, the previous Task or Tasks will have their statuses set to “Revise”, indicating to the users assigned to them that there are revisions required before they can be approved.

Revise

This status is set when a proceeding Approval Task is set to “Reject”.

The “Revise” status indicates that revisions on the work completed are required before the content or Assets can be approved.

Approved

This status is more specific to Approval Tasks, but can be seen for Manual Tasks. See section 8.5. Types of Nodes for more information.

When the Task is set to “Approved” it sets the following Tasks’ statuses to “Pending” automatically. An “Approval” status indicates that the content that required review was acceptable to move on to the next Task.

Complete

When the work for the Task is complete, the Task status is set to “Complete” and automatically sets the following Tasks’ statuses to “Pending”.

Table 1: Key Default Task Statuses and Actions

Setting Task Bid Start and Bid End Dates

As noted, the Tasks that get created, due to the Workflow selection for the associated Deliverable, each have the same amount of time to be completed. What this means is that each of their “Bid Start” and “Bid End” dates (start and due dates, respectively) are equally divided between the “Start Date” and “Due Date” of the Deliverable, in the order defined by the Workflow. If you take a look at the Figure 15: Task Bid Start and End Dates below, you can see that this is the case. There is an equal amount of time to do each Task, and the “Bid Start” of the first Task and the “Bid End” of the last Task correspond to the “Start Date” and “Due Date” of the Deliverable.

Figure 15: Task Bid Start and End Dates

The dates that are set are not always going to work for everyone. Sometimes the Tasks take longer to complete, sometimes shorter, and maybe sometimes during different work hours like weekends or nights. This is meant only as a starting point, it is not “carved in stone”. You can change the dates of each of the Tasks according to your company’s schedule.

To modify the “Bid Start” or “Bid End” dates of each of the Tasks, click on the row of the Task under the “Bid Start” or “Bid End” date columns and a calendar tool will appear, as shown in Figure 16: Setting a Date and Time for Tasks. You will be able to select the date and time to set. Once set, click on the save button to save the new date and time.

Figure 16: Setting a Date and Time for Tasks

When setting the “Bid Start” and “Bid End” dates of Tasks, there a couple more important things to know:

If all of the Tasks need to be pushed to a later due date, you can change the “Due Date” of the Deliverable to that later date and all of the Task dates will be rescheduled to fall between the “Start Date” and new “Due Date” of the Deliverable, as shown in Figure 17: Changing Deliverable Due Date to Re-schedule Tasks. In the figure, as a reference, the Deliverable “Due Date” was originally set to “2015-11-20 18:00”. Recall from section 3.1.2. Changing Task Statuses that the Deliverable “Start Date” gets set to the current date by the setting the first Task to “In Progress”. This will then re-schedule all of the Tasks between the current “Start Date” and selected “Due Date”. If the “Due Date” of the Deliverable you set is past the Order’s “Due Date”, it will also automatically change the “Due Date” of the Order to the same date.

Figure 17: Changing Deliverable Due Date to Re-schedule Tasks

TODO: this is likely not relevant anymore

If the “Bid Start” of the first Task is set before or “Bid End” date of the last Task is set after the Deliverable’s “Start Date” and “Due Date”, respectively, it will change the “Start Date”, “Due Date”, or both to the same date as the “Bid Start” and “Bid End” of those Tasks, as shown in Figure 18: Task Bid Start Sets Deliverable Start Date. In the figure, as a reference, the Task “Bid Start” was originally set to “2015-11-12 12:51”. This will also re-schedule all of the Tasks between the Deliverable’s new “Start Date” and original “Due Date”. If the new “Start Date” or “Due Date” set on the Deliverable are before or after the Order’s “Start Date” and “Due Date”, respectively, the Order will have these dates set as its new “Start Date” or “Due Date”.

Figure 18: Task Bid Start Sets Deliverable Start Date

If you are trying to set the “Bid Start” of the Task to after its “Bid End”, or the “Bid End” before its “Bid Start”, you will get a warning indicating that one of these dates has to be before or after the other, as shown in Figure 19: Task Bid Start and End Date Warning.

Figure 19 : Task Bid Start and End Date Warning

Adding Assets to Tasks

In many projects, it is common for a Task to involve the creation or modification of Assets or files. As a result, Tasks are given the ability to have Assets added to them to be worked on. As an example, there might be a Design Task that gets assigned to a Designer to create a mockup or draft of the finished Deliverable.

Continuing with this example, as the Designer, if the Task has been assigned to me I would go to Tasks > My Tasks. The “My Tasks” view lists all Tasks in the system that have been assigned to me to work on. For a list of all of the Tasks in the system, navigate to Tasks > All Tasks.

To add an Asset to one of the Tasks, click the button under the “Add Asset” column in the row of the Task you want to add the Asset or file to. A popup of the “Asset Library” with 2 options will appear. From here, you can select Assets from the Asset Library and click “Add From Library” to add the Assets to the Task, as shown in Figure 20: Add Asset From Library. You can also upload a new file to the Task by clicking “Upload” and browse for the file to upload from your local machine, as shown in Figure 21: Uploading a File to a Task.

It makes sense that a user may have to upload multiple files to the same task, or alternatively may want to upload new versions of the same file. The Versioning System supports both of these scenarios. If a file is uploaded with a new filename, it will become v001 of that particular file, and if a file is uploaded that matches a file already in the Task, it will simply version it up, preserving both files for later reference.

The Upload option is available primarily for adding an Asset that is being modified or edited on your local machine back into the Task. It is not recommended that brand new files not already in the “Asset Library” be added to Tasks, as the purpose of the “Asset Library” is to store new and re-usable Assets that may need to be worked on or incorporated into a finished Asset or the Deliverable that needs to be completed. The next section will discuss how to work on Assets.

Note to TACTIC Project Administrators: The addition of Assets to Tasks is actually a check-in or upload to the associated Deliverable. The Asset gets stored in the file system according to the Naming Convention defined for the Deliverables. No management of this is required as TACTIC handles all of the storage, versioning and location of Assets, but it is mentioned here for general knowledge.

Working on Task Assets

Users can download Assets from Tasks from any of the views. Assigning Tasks to Users, including “My Tasks” and “All Tasks”. The “Work On” button is available from the “Work On” column for each Task in the view. Clicking on it will bring up a popup dialog showing all items added specifically to that Task. To work on any of the Assets in that Task, click on the “Download” button under the “Download” column for any of the Assets listed. This will download the Assets or files right to your local machine so you can make edits and modifications to it in order to complete your Task. Once complete, you can add the Asset or file back into the Task by following the Upload procedure described in the section 'Adding Assets to Tasks'.

If a user wants to download the Assets from a different Task, it’s simply a matter of selecting that Task’s name (the Task “Process”) from the simple search bar on the top of the dialog. Within this dialog, click the button under the Download column to have that Asset downloaded to your local machine. The process will only show up in the search if Asset have been added to that Task.