We are actively working on TH version 2.0.
If this site seems neglected and without update
it's because we are no longer extending the
current version. The next release is a full
rewrite.
As soon as we have a release date for beta, you can be certain we'll have that on the home page.
Working With Tasks
Assuming you know what it's like to enter a task, now let's look at what
it takes to work with them. By working with them, we mean adding comments,
attachments, delegating to others and, the ultimate objective, closing them.
After you log into your website, the Task menu should appear looking perhaps something like what you see to the left.
On a daily basis, most of use are concerned with what's expected of us. The question we all ask, "What do I need to finish?"
You will notice the numbers to the right of some of the menu items. As you
might guess, this is the number of task records in that group. So in this case,
the person who logged in has 12 items waiting for them.
By clicking Assigned to me, a list of 12 tasks will be displayed that might look something like this:
Working with a single task
A task record has four sections. They are the filter, header, tabs and history. For now, we'll just focus on header and tabs. We'll get to history in a few minutes.
The Four Areas of a Task Record
1. Filter - For now, we're going to ignore this one because it deals with something other than learning what a task is. (This one is about finding tasks, rather than learning how to manage one)
2. Header - The header of the task is where you find all that stuff you entered when you created it. It's all pretty self-explanatory so for now, we'll just assume you can figure out what all those fields mean.
3. Tabs - Each task record has four tabs above the Comments box. By default, a task record will show all the comments that are attached to the task.
What's a task comment?
In the completion of any task, communication is required. This usually happens in the form of questions and answers. A comment is either of those. As part of the Q&A process, attachments are often used to define or clarify and those too will appear as comments in the task history.
An attachment isn't really a comment, but we include it as one so it's1 clear where an attachment was added in the "task conversation" When you include an attachment, here's what it looks like:
To view all attachments for a task... you would click the Attachments tab. When you upload an attachment, you are asked for a filename (via a browse button) and a short description. By default, all attachments will appear in the history section as a comment.
4. History The history area of a task record is the part that can get lengthy. In the above example, there were 16 comments made to that task. Comments are listed in most-recent-first order, so when wanted to understand the full history of a task, you'll need to read from the buttom-up.
Timelogs
If you don't care about keeping track of how long it takes to finish a task, then skip over this part.
Timelogs is a feature we created
to support invoicing. At least for us, we use Taskhopper to feed our
billing system. At the end of each period, TH can produce a summary of
hours accumulated. Within the task header, you will see a tally of
total hours used.
How do you log time? Another good question. If a task is assigned
to you, the header of the task changes a bit. It will include a few
more fields so you can record your contribution to it's successful
completion. Here's what you will see:
Realtime is used like this: Your life is spent in an office and you have an internet connection. You get a call, you create the task and assign it to someone else. They open the task, enter what they're doing to help, then click Start. Taskhopper opens what's called a timer record and starts the clock. When that person is done doing whatever, the click stop and the time is added to the task.
This process continues until someone believes the task is done.
Unrealtime mode, it would mean you went off and completed some amount of work, then came back, logged into TH to post that time. It takes a few more clicks to do this, but it's still pretty quick. If people gruble that it takes too much time, it usually means they didn't do any work or they're just not very good clicking a mouse.
Resources - Logging Time
If you don't care about keeping track of how long it takes to finish a task, then skip over this part too.
By default, the Assigned_to person is the one who is supposed to log
time against a task. So going back to the header of the task, the
person in yellow is able to bill time against a task.
But in the real world, more than one person is often part of the task completion process. If you want multiple people to contribute time to a task, and you have lots of tasks, then Taskhopper is perfect for you!
When others need to work on the same project AND record their time, two things must happen first:
1. They must be given rights to the project
2. They are added as a resource to the task
Remember that TH requires every Joomla user to be given specific rights to projects before they can do anything with them... even see them. i.e., If someone registers on your site, they might be able to see the task menu, but none of the actually tasks will be visible. (More about this in the Admin section of the tour)
Once a person has rights to a project, then they (or others) can add them as a resource. This is pretty easy to do. If you already have rights to the project, then you can just click this button:
You can guess what this does
If you are an admin and want to assign Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice,
then just select the names from the dropdown and click Add. (or
in this example, it might be Peter, Zsolt, Gabor and Attila)
Ok, two more items and that's enough for this page!
How Much Time Should A Task Consume?
On some tasks you may want to let the task person know how much time
you want them to spend so we included an estimated hours field. It
doesn't really do anything other than letting others know how big a
task it is. In a volunteer organization, it would be useful to be
able to pick tasks based on size. e.g., "I would like to do a task
that takes < 2 hours" ... but we never got around to implementing
this.
Changing Header Information
Our GUI design skills need a bit of work, we know that. The DELETE
button is ten times bigger than the edit... so that's one of our things
we plan to improve in version 2. Until then, this is all you need to remember:
Demo Home | Adding a Task | Finding Tasks | Taskhopper Home