Tasks & Milestones

The Tasks module is the most popular Feng Office module. The Tasks tab gives you access to tasks and milestones.

Tasks are a way of letting user's know what they have to do, when they have to do it, how long they have to do it for, and maybe even How to do it.

Milestones tell teams when a set of tasks is due.

Tasks can be assigned to clients, projects, workspaces, and milestones.

Milestones can have tasks assigned to them - but they can exist without any tasks, simply as a reminder for an important date.

Note: In order to enable Milestones, please see the following link

There are many ways to create a New Task. You can find Step-by-Step instructions on How to Add a New Task here: Creating your First Task

On this section, we will review the different functions of Tasks and show you how you can manage them to get the best out of them.

Below is a screenshot of how a typical Task Module looks in the list view, with added Tasks, Subtasks and more.

This is how your Task Module's Tool Bar. This toolbar lets you Edit, Delete, Complete, Print, and Filter Tasks, among other functions.

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Below, we will show in detail what each item on the toolbar does for you.

• New task: Creates a new task.
• New milestone: Creates a new milestone.
• Templates: Use the submenu to create a task(s) from an existing task template or Create a new Template.

• Complete: Marks the currently selected Task as Completed.

• Move to trash: Moves the currently selected tasks to the trash.

• Archive: Archives the selected note(s) into the Archived Objetcs folder.

• Mark as: Lets you mark the selected note(s) as read or unread.

• Show: Shows further information such as Time, Dates, Empty Milestones or Estimated Task Time.

Time adds a button at the end of each line that allows you to start the time tracking for this task.

• Print: Allows you to print the tasks you are working with at that moment.

• View as Gantt: Allows you to View your Tasks in a Gantt Chart instead of the List View.

• Filter: By Filtering your Tasks, you define which tasks will be visible and which will be hidden.
  Proceed from left to right since the content of the second dropdown menu depends on what you select in the first dropdown menu. (i.e. Filter: Assigned To: Me)

• Status: The Status Filter lets you organize Tasks by the status they are at: Pending, Completed, Overdue, etc.

• Group by: By Grouping, you define which aspect of your tasks is taken as a criteria to organize them into smaller groups, such as Same Due date, same Client, same Workspace, etc. Grouping helps you to generate task lists for many purposes.

• Order by: You can Order your tasks by one of many parameters. Please note that sorting happens always within a group. In other words the Group by settings (see above) are applied before the Order by settings. A smart combination between the two features will optimize your task list (i.e. Group by: Due Date and Order By: Progress).

There are some more commands for tasks in the list view:

• Hide others / Show all: Hides or unhides other task groups.
• Print: Prints the current task group.
• Green plus icon: Adds a task or subtask.
• Blue plus/minus icon: Indicates that a task has subtasks. Click on it to unfold or hide the subtasks.
• Edit: Lets you edit the task properties in quick edit mode (see below).
• Complete: Sets the task to complete.
• Stop watch icon: Starts the time tracking for a task. If there is a user working on a task his name is shown in red, and you get buttons to pause or stop the time tracking.

The quick edit mode allows you to quickly edit the most important properties of an existing task from the list view. To have access to all properties click on View Full-Task Form….

This same feature will show up when you click on Add Subtask, so you can enter your Subtask's Basic information.

Once you click on View Full-Task Form, you will be able to enter all of your Tasks details:

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• Name: Displays the Task's name.
• Commands: Define the numerous properties your Task could have, such as Relationship to Clients, Assigned to, Date, Linked Documents, Task Repetition, and more.

In the Task Data Section you will be able to enter your Task's most Basic information, such as:

• Start and Due Dates: Select when the tasks need to start and be finished.
• Relationship to “Parent Task” and “Previous Tasks”: Allows you to assign, change or remove a parent task. By assigning a parent task you are changing a task to a sub task. Please note: The parent task may be chosen from all existing tasks and may therefore belong to another workspace
• Estimated Task Time: Time needed to complete this task (in hours and minutes).
• Categorize by Priority: Defines how important/urgent a task is. Choose between one of the following:
  • Urgent
  • High
  • Normal
  • Low
• Percentage of Task Completion: Choose a percentage estimate of how much of the task has been completed.

Please note: Currently (Feng Office 1.5.3) you can enter any date for start date and due date. You can even enter a start date which is later than the due date, and you can enter a start or a due date which is later than the milestone date. Feng Office does not consider this as an error and does not give you a warning.

In this section you can relate your tasks to:

• Clients and/or Projects
• Workspaces
• Tags

This way you can classify to which Client, Workspace or Project the Task belongs to and also keep up with Tasks for each individual Client, Project or Workspace you are working with.

You can set up a Task Repetition if you need the same Task to be done more than once. (This is very similar to defining a repeating event.)

This helps you save time and effort, since you won't have to set up the Task manually each time.

• Repeat: Interval of the occurance of this task. You may choose to repeat the Task Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly. To convert a repeating task back to a one-time only task, choose This Day Only.
• Every … days: This defines the interval between two occurances of the task.
• Repeat forever: This allows you to repeat the task with no time limitation.
• Repeat … times: This option allows you to set up exactly how many times you want the repetition to be done (if you did not choose Repeat Forever).
• Repeat until…: Use this option to set up a date in which the repetition will no longer occur. (i.e. if you are planning a weekly task like “Writing status report” for a project, which must be complete at the end of the year, you may want to set up: Repeat until: December 31st)
• Repeat by: Define whether you wish to repeat by the Start date or Due Date of the Task.
• You can also set repetition to: Repeat on Saturdays, Repeat on Sundays, Repeat on Working Days

As a way of keeping up with Task's Due Dates, and make sure that they are completed on time, you can set up reminders such as Email Notifications or Pop-Up Messages. (This is very similar to defining reminders for events.)

• Choose the type of a reminder you wish to receive: Email Notification or Pop-Up Message.
• Choose when you wish to receive the Reminder (in Minutes, Hours, Days or Weeks), prior to the Tasks Due Date.
• Check Apply to all subscribers if you wish for the reminder to be sent out to all the tasks's subscribers as well.

You can set up as many reminders as you wish for any given task.

Please note: Feng Office will not prevent you from defining several identical reminders.

Pop-up reminders are displayed at the top of the screen and look as follows:

In this section, you will have the option to set your own new properties depending on your needs.

This section allows you to add Subscribers to this Tasks, which comes in very handy to follow and observe a certain process.

To learn more about subscriptions, please visit the following link: Subscribing People to Objects

This section allows you to Link or Unlik an object (Email, Document, Note, Picture, etc.) to a Task.

To see more about linking objects, please visit this Page.

• Complete: Sets the task's status to “complete”.
• Edit: Lets you edit this task. Clicking on this link takes you to the edit view.
• Move to trash: Lets you move this task to the trash.
• Archive: Lets you archive this task into the Archived Objetcs folder.
• Create a copy of this task: Lets you create a copy of this task
• Add to a template: Lets you add this task to a certain template.
• Print view: Displays a printable version of this task and calls the print command.
• View History: Lets you read the note's history.

• Workspace: Workspace where this task is allocated to. Clicking on a workspace name to select it, takes you to list view.
• Tags: Tags that are attached to this task. Clicking on a tag name, selects it in the left sidebar.
• Subscribers: People who are subscribed to this task. Clicking on a subscriber name takes you to the corresponding user profile.
• Created by: User who created this task. Clicking on this users name takes you to the corresponding user profile.

By default, milestones are currently disabled in order to avoid unwanted complexities, so in case you would like to use them, you must first enable them.

1. Go the Administration Panel
2. Select Configuration
3. Get to General
4. Enable the Use milestones option
5. Save the changes
6. Press the F5 key

From now on, you will be able to use milestones.

Remember, after creating them, in order to see them in the Tasks list you must group the tasks by Milestones:

1. Go to Tasks tab
2. In the filters, make sure the Group by and Milestones options are chosen

• Due Date: Lets you set a due date for this milestone.

Each milestone is assigned to a workspace. You can select the appropriate workspace here. WARNING! This milestone's tasks must belong to the same workspace as the milestone, or to one of its sub-workspaces. If the workspace is changed, any tasks that do not comply with this rule will be moved to the selected workspace.

In this section you can assign one or more tags to a milestone.

This option allows you to describe the content of this object.

This section allows you to assing a Person or Company to this milestone. You may choose to send a notification through email if you enable the attached check box.

To ensure that tasks are completed on time you can define reminders, consisting of e-mail notifications or pop-up alerts. (This is very similar to defining reminders for events.)

Choose the type of a reminder (E-mail or Pop-up message) and the timeframe (in Minutes, Hours, Days or Weeks before the due date.) By checking Apply to all subscribers these reminders are sent not only to the assigned users but to all users who have subscribed to this task as well. You can define as many reminders for a task as you like.

Please note: Feng Office will not prevent you from defining several identical reminders.

Pop-up reminders are displayed at the top of the screen and look as follows:

In this section, you will have the option to set your own new properties depending on your needs.

This section allows you to edit the subscribers options.

This section allows you to link objects to a task (and unlink them as well).

Many organizations (specially businesses), require their team members to track time.

Time tracking is a good management tool for:

1. Understanding where time is spent (work-intensive organizations want to know this).
2. Accurately bill clients.

Feng Office has built in time tracking features that makes it easy for users to fill in their time sheet.

In the detail view of a task nobody has worked on before, you simply see these two buttons:

Both buttons allow you to enter a so called time slot for this task. A time slot is simply an amount of time (minutes or hours) you have worked on a specific date for this task, and usually you add a comment with some detail information about your work.

The difference between the two buttons is that Start work starts a timer, while Add work simply opens a form which allows you to enter a number of hours. So you would typically use Start work if you start working on a task right now, while you would use Add work to enter some work you already did.

PLEASE NOTE: Feng Office does not prevent you from starting the timer for several tasks in parallel or from starting the timer on a task that is already completed.

After saving a time slot it is displayed in a list like this:

Starting and stopping the timer can be achieved from the list view as well: Clicking on the stopwatch icon toggles the timer on and off.

In the example above, user “Martin Sauter” is currently working on the first task (indicated by a red background).

Note that you can edit or delete a time slot at any time if needed. The edit screen for a time slot can be reached from the task detail view and looks like this:

Task Templates are a very powerful tool, and they take a bit of initial configuration to use.

That is why templates deserve a section of their own:

Read here if you want to learn how to configure and use task templates.

Task dependencies enable Project Managers to establish relationships between tasks.

If a task is to be executed only after a previous one is finished, we say the second task is 'dependent' on the first.

You can now define task dependencies in Feng Office.

In order to be able to set and use task dependencies you first need to activate them.

To do so, please follow these steps:

1. Click on your name (top right corner) and go to 'Administration'
2. Go to Configuration and then select General
3. Enable the option called 'Use task dependencies'
4. Save the changes

Lets go over a simple example of creating a task dependency between two tasks:

1. You would need to create a task - lets say 'Task A' - and assign a start date.
2. Then create a new task - lets call it 'Task B' - and
   1. when creating it (or later on when editing it), if you would like it to relate it with 'Task A'…
   2. when editing in full form you would have to look for 'Previous task' (within 'Task data').
3. Now you would have to click on 'Add previous task' and look for another one (lets say 'Task A').
   1. After doing this, you will not be able to complete 'Task B' until 'Task A' has not been completed.

Note: 'TaskB' start date would have to be equal or greater than 'Task A'.

Read here if you want to learn how to assign a task to multiple users.

Some user specific preferences for tasks can be set in the User account.

Are tasks and milestones shown in the calendar?

Yes, this is the standard behavior. Tasks and Milestones appear on the calendar on their due date.