Create, Schedule, and Assign Tasks

Tasks are the foundation of every project, breaking down the larger initiative-driven project plan into focused and tangible pieces of work. They are used to capture details, set timelines, and outline responsibilities to ensure successful completion of work on projects. 

Tasks are assigned to team members to allocate responsibilities, ensuring accountability and providing visibility into the progress of work. This article focuses on processes for creating tasks and outlines relevant workflows, including task scheduling, setting up checklists, and managing assignments.

Task Creation

Creating tasks from scratch could be necessary when you need to track additional work on an existing project or build a custom project plan. In this section, we focus on creating tasks and review some key features, including how to fill out task details and add checklists. 

Create Tasks

Tasks can be created and added to projects in any of the main TaskRay views. If a project incorporates task groups to organize work, you can add new tasks directly to the task group.

Refer to the following documentation for step-by-step task creation instructions for each of the main TaskRay views:

• Create tasks in Kanban View
• Create tasks in Plan View
• Create tasks in Spreadsheet View

Manage Task Details

To ensure clarity and alignment on tasks, key information can be added via Task Details. Additionally, you can create checklists to track granular details and ensure that every aspect of the task is accounted for.

Task Details

The detailed task view can be accessed from any of the main TaskRay views:

• Kanban View: double-click on the task card.
• Plan View: double-click on the task in the left sidebar.
• Spreadsheet View: click on the task name.

Once within Task Details, you will first see the task's field-level information. To modify any of the field values:

1. Click on the Edit button in the modal or click on the pencil icon next to the applicable field.
2. Update information as needed.
3. Click Save.

Checklists

Checklists are a great way to outline granular details, track progress, and ensure that every piece of work is accounted for on tasks. To add or modify checklists on a task, switch over to the Checklist tab within the Task Details pane.  

Milestone Tasks

Milestones are single-day tasks used to designate major events or deliverables within a project. If you need to create a milestone, you will start by following the same steps as when creating a new task. Once the new task is created, you will need to access its Task Details and set the Milestone checkbox to true (checked).

Milestones will be designated with diamond icons throughout TaskRay for visual reference.

Task Scheduling

Scheduling is an important element of task management. It helps ensure that work is completed on time and that projects don't fall behind set deadlines. 

In TaskRay, scheduling is driven by tasks, which means that the project and task group schedules auto-adjust to encompass the task schedules within them. Therefore, the project and task group start dates are based on their first scheduled task, and the end dates are based on their last scheduled task.

When a task is scheduled, the following key data points (fields) are updated on the record:

• Start Date: the date when the task is scheduled to start
• Estimated End Date: the date when the task is planned (estimated) to end; the task's due date
• Duration: the number of days between the task's Start Date and Estimated End Date (includes working and non-working days)
• Business Duration: the number of working days between the task's Start Date and Estimated End Date

Manage Task Schedules

The best place to manage scheduling is in Plan View. Plan View is designed to visualize project plans on a timeline, making it easy to schedule new tasks and update task schedules on in-flight projects. Refer to the Manage Task Schedules section of the Plan View support article for detailed information.

Task Dependencies

Dependencies are used to prescribe the order in which tasks should be worked on. Similar to scheduling, the best place to visualize and manage dependencies is in Plan View. For more information, refer to the Task Dependencies article.

Lock Dates on Tasks

If a task or a milestone needs to occur on a specific date, regardless of other scheduling changes on the project, it is possible to lock dates on it. For example, if your project requires some deliverable to be completed by a specific date, such as for a customer's implementation go-live, you can create a task or milestone for the event and enable locked dates on it. While other dependent tasks leading up to that deliverable may shift throughout the course of the project plan, the deliverable itself will remain fixed, ensuring that the important date stays front and center. For more information, refer to the Lock Dates article.

Override Project Schedule

If a task needs to be scheduled on a non-working day, it is possible to apply an override to that task. For example, let's say that a task must be scheduled to occur on a Saturday, such as to account for an important event that occurs on the weekend. Assuming that Saturdays are set as non-working days, the task can be configured with an override, allowing you to schedule it on the non-working day. For more information, refer to the Override Project Schedule article.

Task Assignments

Task assignments allow you to outline responsibilities and delegate work on projects. Tasks can be assigned to specific team members, as well as to Roles. In the case of task assignments, Roles act as placeholders, allowing you to designate teams that will be responsible for managing work. This approach is useful when the work must be managed by a particular team, but the specific team members who will be assigned are not yet known. 

TaskRay offers a few different ways to manage assignments.

Assign Tasks in TaskRay Views

If you need to assign specific tasks on active projects or manage one-off task assignments, you can do so using drag-and-drop actions in Kanban and Plan View. When viewing the applicable task in either of those views, you will see a Team tab on the right displaying icons of team members. Locate the icon of the team member that should be assigned to the task and drag their icon from the right sidebar onto the task.

Manage Assignments in the Dynamic Team Builder

The Dynamic Team Builder is a great way to manage assignments in bulk. Most commonly, the Dynamic Team Builder is used to allocate work on new projects based on placeholder Role assignments. That said, it can also be used to swap out team members on projects and reassign their work to others in bulk. 

Archive or Delete Tasks

Refer to the Archive or Delete Tasks article for further details.