Task Plans

Key Concepts

A Task Plan is a breakdown of all the work required to complete a specific job. It is the job’s to-do list.

The ideas behind a Task Plan:

• One plan per job: Each job has its own Task Plan.
• The same building blocks as a template: sub-tasks, dependencies and schedulable tasks mean the same here as on Task Templates, and the editor is the same one.

Navigating to a job’s Task Plan

To open a job’s Task Plan, open the job: on the dashboard, in the Jobs card, click Explore, then click the job. On its display view, click Manage Task Plan.

This opens the edit view for that job’s Task Plan.

The editor is a form, so nothing you do here is kept until you save it. Save and Cancel sit at the top of the page and again at the bottom; Save writes your changes to the job, Cancel discards them. The plan’s Name: is set from the job number and cannot be edited.

The grid lists one row per task, with a Task, Description, Status, Due and Assigned To column. To the right of Assigned To is a narrow badge column: any task you have marked schedulable carries a blue Schedulable pill there, which tells you which tasks will reach the Task Scheduler. The Task Dependencies chart on the far right shows the same tasks as bars you can link together.

Importing Task Templates

You can import one or more Task Templates into your Task Plan to add their pre-defined sets of tasks.

1. Click the Task Template: box, which reads Find a task template… until you pick one, and choose the template you want. You can type into it to narrow the list.
2. Optionally, select a task in the plan that will become the main task for the imported tasks.
3. Click the Import Template button. It stays greyed out until a template is chosen, so if you cannot click it, go back to step 1.

If you don’t select a main task, the template’s tasks will be added to the top level of your plan. If you do select a main task, the new tasks will be added as its sub-tasks. This is useful when a job needs the same set of actions at several locations.

For example, suppose a job needs a topographic survey on two separate parcels of land. Create two main tasks, “Topo for Parcel A” and “Topo for Parcel B”, then import your standard “Topographic Survey” template under each. Both parcels get the same procedure, and the work for each stays under its own main task within the same job.

Adding and Organizing Tasks

The edit view that Manage Task Plan opens is the task editor from Task Templates, with the same + Add Task, Link, Delete Task, Delete Link and Toggle Schedulable buttons and the same Task Dependencies chart. Adding tasks and sub-tasks, linking them, making them schedulable and deleting them are all described under Adding and Organizing Tasks on that page. What a plan adds is the Import Template button and the Status, Due and Assigned To columns, covered in the sections above.

• To rename a task, double-click the Task cell, edit the text, and press Enter.
• To add a description, double-click the Description cell, add your text, and press Enter.

Task Status

A task’s status records its progress. Three statuses are yours to set in the plan:

• Not Started: The task has not yet begun.
• In Progress: The task is currently being worked on.
• Completed: The task is finished.

Two more, Blocked and Unscheduled, are worked out for you rather than chosen; the Task Dashboard, where you meet them, says what each means.

You can change a task’s status by double-clicking the Status cell for that task in the editor.

Two things to know:

• You can only change the status of tasks that do not have any sub-tasks. A main task’s status comes from its sub-tasks: it is complete only when all of its sub-tasks are complete, and if even one sub-task is still in progress, the main task shows as in progress.
• Completed tasks are highlighted in green.

Task Due Date

You can set a Due Date for any task. The date is for information and planning and does not affect the schedule. It is displayed in other parts of the system, such as the Scheduler and Task Dashboard.

To set or change a due date, double-click the Due cell for the task and choose a date from the calendar.

If a sub-task’s due date is later than its main task’s due date, it is highlighted in red to flag a possible planning problem.

Assigning Tasks

To assign a task to one or more employees, double-click the Assigned To cell for that task and pick from the list of employees that appears.

Two things to know:

• You can only assign tasks that are not marked as schedulable. A schedulable task is assigned from the Task Scheduler, not the Task Plan.
• Only one task within a group of a main task and its sub-tasks can have a direct assignment. For example, if you assign the main task “Field Work” to a crew, all of its sub-tasks (like “Set Control Points” and “Locate Monuments”) are assigned to that same crew. You cannot assign a sub-task to a different crew than its main task.

Scheduled Tasks

When a task is scheduled in the Task Scheduler, a calendar icon appears next to it in the Task Dependencies chart. Hover over the icon and a dialog shows details such as the scheduled date and any notes.

If notes were typed into the Schedule notes… box in the Task Scheduler, a message icon also appears. Hover over it to see the notes.