Working with Tasks

The work lifecycle — create, plan, assign, schedule, do, and account for time and cost.

Tasks are the unit of work in Runcible. Almost everything else — programs, projects, schedules, timecards, walls — exists to give tasks a place to live and a way to move.

Read this chapter top to bottom the first time. After that, jump to the topic that matches the job in front of you.

In this chapter

• Working with Tasks — A task is a unit of work with a page, a workflow state, and (usually) an assignee. This topic orients you to the whole lifecycle before the how-tos below.
• Working with Projects — Projects hold the tasks. A program organizes projects; a project is where day-to-day work is created, filtered, and delivered. (stub)
• Planning — Planning is arranging work before you commit people and time — nesting tasks, setting priority, and deciding what belongs together. (stub)
• Estimating — Estimates describe expected effort or size. Runcible can cost work from the role a task is assigned to, so role-based estimates matter even before a person is named. (stub)
• Assigning People to Tasks — Four ways to assign a task: edit the task page, quick-edit in Outline, drag onto a person in the Team Panel, or drop onto their schedule in the Schedule Panel.
• Resourcing — Resourcing is matching work to available people and skills — often by role first, then by named individual when the roster is known. (stub)
• Forecasting — Forecasting puts planned work on a calendar before anyone has confirmed they will do it. Confirmed appointments become commitments. (stub)
• Doing Work — Doing work means moving a task through its workflow while leaving a durable record on the page wall — comments, files, time, and expenses. (stub)
• Time — Charge time against a task so effort is attributable, reviewable on a timecard, and (when appropriate) billable to a program account. (stub)
• Expenses — Expenses are costs charged against a task — travel, materials, or other outlays — so they travel with the work and can be reviewed with time. (stub)
• Adjustments — Adjustments correct financial or accounting records when a simple move or copy of a task is not enough — for example after work has already been charged. (stub)
• Transfers — Transfers move value or responsibility between accounts or work items when the original charge needs to land somewhere else. (stub)
• [Commissions] — Commission handling for sales-related work. Bracketed topics are not complete in the beta documentation set. (stub)
• Task Responsibility — Responsibility is layered: assignee (plan), scheduled/forecast (time set aside), committed (confirmed), workflow members (who can change state), and owners / managers who close and stand behind the work.
• Adding Personal Tasks and Notes with Quick Task — Use Quick Task to capture ideas and personal work fast — then move them into a public project when they belong with the team.
• Moving Tasks from Personal to Public Projects — Drag tasks from a personal project to The Dock, choose Move or Copy, then drop them onto the destination project's Tasks Panel.
• Creating Templates: Groups of Tasks, or Entire Projects — Keep reusable steps, processes, or protocols as template projects, then drag them into live work via The Dock or a side-by-side workspace.
• Quickly Adding a Series of Tasks To Projects — Favorite a “Quick Task Lists” story inside a program, or create a desktop / bookmark shortcut that opens straight to its Subtasks tab — the lightest way to enter many tasks without the full workspace.
• Adding Tasks In Context — Create tasks where you already are — on a page, in the Outline, on the Board, on the Timeline, or in the Table — instead of leaving context to hunt a form.
• The Task Workflow — The default path for most tasks: create on a project, estimate, assign, forecast, confirm, do the work (time/expenses), change status, submit the timecard, and let owners approve.
• Task Links and Dependencies — Three relationship kinds: parent-child (the tree), dependencies (sequence in time on the Gantt), and links (relates to, duplicates, supersedes).