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This document is created if you have employees or contractors that use Dingo to track time spent on tasks and projects.  Here are three popular reasons why some care about keeping track of time:

a.)   Often projects have budgets. How much time you spend on tasks is critical to project management. 

b.)   Time is money. An accurate trail of who said/did what, when and why is critical to client management.    Accurate invoicing with supporting detail is always a good thing.

b.)   Recurring Tasks. In any environment where tasks repeat, it’s often useful to know how long something takes.  This is especially true in a volunteer-based organization where people want to know how much time commitment is required to complete a task.

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Dingo gives you two ways to get a task request into the system.   The quick way would be via the "Visitor Ticket" which requires seven fields to be completed.   (the only optional one is the attachment)   You can configure Dingo to accept requests from any visitor to the website, or it could be used as a "quick add" item restricted to only those who have logged in.    Here's what the Visitor Ticket fields look like:


The reason for the Visitor Ticket was so that anyone could poke a request into your Dingo database, making this useful for anything from generic website feedback to project members in a hurry or wishing to remain anonymous.  (Tip: if you are doing this to be anonymous, keep in mind that your IP address is included in the submitted ticket, something that's not included in regular submissions)

When a Visitor Ticket is submitted, it goes in at whatever priority level you selected in the backend settings of Dingo.   What this means:  When a visitor submits a ticket, they don't need (or have the authority) to determine when something is done.   As long as the project manager for the public project that visitors can see has their email notification set to the default level or above, someone will be alerted when new anonymous requests arrive.   (e.g.,  If you're using Dingo to field requests for new customers, you would want to make sure someone is alerted ASAP to handle the follow-up)

The less quick way takes a bit longer because you have six additional fields you can control before you submit the item.  (green fields below are those that are in addition to those show above in the Visitor Ticket)   To make a submission to a form that looks like this, the requsting person must be Author or above.

Status should normally be left to "New" as this puts it into the queue for being unread by others.  It's possible that sometimes you would want to define the request further for things like "Pending Approval" or "Estimate Only" which lets others know this isn't a start-now request.

Planned Start defaults to the current date with due date being very arbitrarily set to current+30.  In an upcoming future release, we plan to change this so the date due defaults to the corresponding due date of the project.   (As of Zoltan, we use current+30)

The last item that is worth mentioning:  Primary.   In task processing, one or more people may be responsible for getting it completed.  Primary is the first person that's assigned.   This person is treated no differently than the other resources on a task.   The only two reasons you would add a person as a resouce:  1.)  They will see the task in their list of "Assigned to me" in the control panel/dashboard and 2.) A person who is a resource can add charges to the task.

It's fine to leave nobody assigned as Primary.  You would do this if you have a group that's good about looking for new items to handle.  In this case, the first person to click "ADD ME" to the item will become the primary.   (The "ADD ME" button will be displayed to anyone who has rights to the project and is not yet a resource on the task)

Estimated hours should be used if you need to give the task resources an idea of how long the entire effort should not exceed.   This may have no connection to reality, but it's often useful to let people know if you think this is a 30 minute effort or something that will take all day.   (Estimated hours is used in the "% done" calculation -- which compares estimated hours to actual time charged)  Tip:  To enter 15 minutes, you would use 0.25

If you have any questions about how Dingo works, please drop by the forum and let us know what you're curious about.

A project is a collection of tasks.  Tasks are collection of comments and comments with attachments.

In the course of a project it's common to attach a few files to a task item.   However, a project can be made up from 100 tasks, so a project can easily end up with 100+ files.    In Dingo, you have (potentially) two ways to get to your files.

As a project manager, you will have a Files option in your control panel.   When you click this you will see all files for all tasks/projects.   (even those task items that have been closed)

Email notifications go out for these three conditions:

1.  A new project is created.  Each time someone is assigned, they will receive something like the image below (click Read More to see it)

2.  A new task is created.  All resource members *on that task* will receive notification that that it exists

3.  A new comment is made against a task.   All resource members *on that task* will receive notification

A user can elect to not be notified by setting their status to Do Not Disturb in their Dingo profile.  By default, notify is on (LOW or above) for all Dingo members/managers.

During conditions 2 & 3 ... the reason everyone on the project does not get notification is because at a task-level, they are not yet involved.   If they care about a task, then can self-add to the task or anyone else on that project can do it for them.    e.g.,  If you are working on a task and need help from someone else in your group, you can add them as a resource and as long as they have notify=ON in their profile, they will start getting type 2 and 3 notifications.

Remember adding someone to a project gives them permission to view/contribute on all tasks for that project.  It does not mean they are required to do so.