Due dates for Tasks within Projects - 1 simple idea, 1 more complex one.
Simple Idea: Assume you have a project with an assigned due
date. Seems like tasks created within this project should never be
allowed to have no due date. Most tasks will need a due date well
ahead of the project due date in order for things to get completed
smoothly. But all tasks in a project would be wrapped up by the
project due date. With that in mind, if I fail to enter a date on a
nested task, it seems like the app ought to default the due date to
the project due date.
Complex Idea: It would be really cool if project-nested tasks had back-dating. By that I mean that you could schedule the due date for that task relative to the due date of the project. Often times in project planning I don't know the exact date when a task should be done, but I know it needs to happen 30 days out, or 90 days out, or something like that. It would be sweet if instead of (or in addition to) the normal date-picker, there was a X-Days-Before form of date entry. You create the task, and specify that this task has to be done 1 day, or 7 days or 90 days or whatever before the project due date. It would be especially cool if that date remained relative to the project due date. That way you could change the project due date, and all the nested-task due dates would re-schedule appropriately. I'd use that constantly.
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Support Staff 2 Posted by Christiane Magee on 29 Jan, 2010 08:14 PM
Hi Schelske,
Simple Idea
Thanks for this comment. Actually if you have a project that contains a set tasks that have no due dates and you set a due date on the project itself, those tasks will show up in your TODAY view once that date rolls around. Now... since we generally have to get stuff done before the due date rolls around and not on the due date itself it only makes sense to be notified of these tasks ahead of time. You can do this by setting in the PROJECT settings, "Show in TODAY:..." "on date", "2 days before", "7days before" etc...
That said, the date set on the project is not added in the DUE DATE option of the task. For the moment we felt that if the tasks were to take on the projects date and have that info transferred to the task, you'd be continuously editing dates on tasks as milestones shifted etc... (we'd also have to then have an option on the task "link due date to project due date").
Hope this clarifies things!
Complex idea
I hear what you are saying about being able to link task due dates to the project due date and have them shift accordingly when the project's due date shifts. I'll suggest this to the dev team for consideration and see what comes out of it. I do know that we are trying to keep the whole system simple and not become MS Project with critical paths, dependencies and the like.
thanks again for your suggestions and comments of late shelske!
C
3 Posted by schelske on 31 Jan, 2010 12:25 AM
Hey Christiane,
Thanks for clarifying the project date thing. It might be useful if that was noted in the project set-up pane, otherwise it seems like there is no way for a new user to know that tasks will default to the Project due date, and "show in Today" settings. It makes a lot of sense to do it the way you say, to avoid lots of extraneous editing.
As for the task-date links, I agree that you want to avoid complex project planning. That makes sense. But it just seemed like an intuitive and simple option to be able to relative-date tasks within a project. From my perspective the magic of the Today list is that the right things show up in that list on the right day. This is another way to make that happen easily, especially for large projects with a lot of pieces.
Thanks for talking back, and I hope I'm not becoming a nag!
Marc
Support Staff 4 Posted by Christiane Magee on 04 Feb, 2010 05:32 PM
Hi Marc,
You are not a nag. No worries there! The more feedback we get, the better.
Very good point. We have some overall improvements in terms of first time user experience that definitely need to be implemented. So your comment is helpful in that regard.
Yes... Today is very helpful when you have tasks show up when they are supposed to - removes the extra brain power of having to remember everything all the time. I'm going to submit this suggestion to the dev team for consideration. I'm sure we can find a simple way of implementing a complex concept.
:)
Cheers Marc,
Christiane
5 Posted by schelske on 16 Feb, 2010 04:51 PM
Looking forward to hearing your team's thoughts. Thanks for taking my request seriously.
Support Staff 6 Posted by Christiane Magee on 17 Feb, 2010 06:20 PM
Hi Marc,
100% we take all requests and suggestions seriously. That said, while we develop the remaining core features, and fix bugs, suggestions on existing features are in a holding pattern for a bit.
Thanks for checking in.
~Christiane