To Dos [in-depth guide]
Guide contents: Scenarios | Copy To Dos from Templates/Projects | Collaborating on task-level to-dos | Trafficking task to-dos | Project-level to-dos | Deliverable to-dos | Reporting on to-dos | Resources
Task-level to-dos are a great way to simplify your schedule, however, there are still scheduling requirements that make having a task necessary.
NOTES:
- There are security rights that control if a user can edit to-dos that are assigned to another user.
- Also, if another user "creates" a to-do and has someone else assigned to it, you cannot delete or edit it without first unassigning the to-do.
- If you add a new To Do and leave the Due Date blank, it will default with Todays Date upon Save. Unless you copy Tasks with existing To Dos, in that case it will leave the Due Date blank.
Scenarios
Typical scenario
You have a milestone deadline to meet, and you have a checklist of things that need to get done by the task due date, but not in any scheduled order.
- So first, we create a task to establish the "due date" of this milestone.
- Next, we determine all of what needs to be done to complete this milestone, and then add those as individual to-dos within this one task.
- Leave the to-dos unassigned, this way everyone on the task can see it.
- We assign at least one person, service & allocated time to the task overall.
This then allows for a more fluid method of work, where users can enter their time over the duration of the task, yet check off the to-dos they have completed and even add comments to those to-do items for others to see and collaborate on.
NOTE: To-dos can be assigned to a single user, however, to improve transparency and collaboration, you can leave the to-dos unassigned, which then lets everyone assigned the task see them.
Detailed/tracking scenario
You have a summary task as your milestone, yet have several scheduled tasks underneath the summary for the timing of specific elements of this milestone.
- Within each task, you have your assigned people, services & allocated times.
- Then for each schedule section of the milestone (sub-task) you add the check-off list of action items that go into completing each task.
- If you have multiple people assigned to one task, then you may want to assign the to-dos to the person assigned to the task so that only they see it in their My task widget.
Copy To Dos from Templates/Projects
You can have To Dos premade on a Project Templates schedule or part of another Projects schedule. And then have those To Dos copy over to your new or existing project.
When copying Tasks with To Dos in these ways, the Due Dates of the To Dos will copy over with blank Due Dates.
Copy From Template
From the Add New Project screen, it will default to Copy From Template.
Copy From Another Project
You can change the Copy From to Another Project.
NOTE: If you do not see Copy From in this screen, scroll down and click Show More.
Copy Tasks with a blank Schedule
Click on the description to take you to the Copy Tasks side panel.
Copy All Tasks with an existing Schedule
Will copy all tasks after the last task of the current schedule.
Copy Individual Tasks from other Projects
Can drop anywhere above or below a task. Dragging a summary task over, will copy over its sub tasks as well.
Duplicate Tasks within the Schedule
Collaborating on task-level to-dos
Much in the same way as a diary thread works, you can have a single-threaded discussion within a to-do.
You can reply by email and have the reply go into the to-do as well.
If you do not assign the to-do to a single person, then all users assigned to the task can access the to-dos via their Today creatives page.
NOTE: Once a task is done, there is no simple way for the assigned users to get back into the to-do.
Trafficking task to-dos
You can manage task-level to-dos from the Traffic calendar & Assignment review traffic screens.
In the Traffic calendar, you can check the search option 'has open activities', as this will only show you tasks with to-dos on them.
For the Assignment review, you can add a filter for open to-do items to limit your results as well.
Project-level to-dos
You can create to-dos at the project setup level. These are not associated with a task and may be useful for project management needs that you do not want set up as tasks in the schedule.
From here, you can see and manage task-level to-dos as well. You can print the list and choose to view only open, closed, or all.
Deliverable to-dos
See the Deliverables [in-depth guide] for more on managing deliverables & their fix-it items.
Reporting on to-dos
If you need to create a report of to-dos spanning multiple projects, you can go to Menu > Project manager > To-do board. Or you can use custom reports.