high and low level tasks/linking between tasks

[gomisha]

In my daily use of VIP Organizer (2.4.3) I have multiple DB files that I work with. One DB file is a list of projects that I'm working on while another DB file is a lower-level daily to do list of tasks for the projects in the first file. Often it takes many days/weeks/month to complete a project so for each project level task, I'd like to track:

1) all the lower-level to do tasks that were created on specific days to work on that project. I'd love to see a list of all the lower level tasks that were created and I could see the details of each task, including the notes section

2) the total time needed to complete the project - this would be the sum of all the "Actual Time" fields of the lower level tasks

3) the total estimated time of the project

As it is right now, I have to do these steps manually, which is quite a hassle. Perhaps there's a way I could do this easier with the current version but I couldn't think of one. I realize I could create categories for each project and then have the low level tasks inside the categories but I have about 50-75 projects and managing that many categories would be a huge problem.

Thanks for your help and keep up the great work.
_________________
-- Misha
misha <at> gomisha <dot> com
Automated Software Testing Solutions
http://www.gomisha.com

[Serge]

As I understood you have one database with projects (and probably their high level tasks) and another database with daily low level tasks for these projects.
Would additional column 'Projects' for each task be a solution for you?

[gomisha]

Yes, that's right - one database has tasks describing all the projects (grouped in 7 top level categories and no sub-categories), while the other database has daily tasks that I set for myself to move the projects forward (also with the same 7 top level categories and no sub-categories).

For the projects DB, I can run filters to determine which projects are coming up due. I can also set certain projects to be higher priority than other.

For the low level daily tasks, I can keep track of what I worked on each day and how long I spent working each day.

Right now there's no way to link the low and high level tasks. I want to be able to see all the tasks associated with a project and be able to filter them any way I want and get the total time spent on that project. My current solution is to manually copy-paste details of the low level tasks into the notes section of the project task. That way the notes section of each project task contains the details of all the low level tasks performed for this project. Needles to say, this is quite cumbersome.

I'm not sure how a project column would solve this problem - can you elaborate?
_________________
-- Misha
misha <at> gomisha <dot> com
Automated Software Testing Solutions
http://www.gomisha.com

[Serge]

If you had additional column 'Project' you could group the task by this column to see what tasks belong to this project and see total estimated and actual time of all the tasks associated with the project.

[gomisha]

Yes, having a Project column would work as far as grouping all tasks by a project and measuring the time spent on each project. So for each task, a user would assign a category and an (optional) project that it belongs to.

This would mean users would need some kind of Projects Bar where they can:

- filter, like you can in the Categories Bar
- create/modify/delete projects and sub-projects, like you can in the Categories Bar

It would work similar to the Categories Bar with the following differences:

- be able to assign different priorities to projects
- be able to assign due dates & reminders for projects
- be able to add notes/descriptions for each project
- be able to group projects under specific categories - For example, I might have a "Sales" category with 2 projects - "Close Deal X", "Move Forward Deal Y", etc.

So really, a project would have properties of both a task and category.

Thanks for all your thoughtful responses and keep up the great work!
_________________
-- Misha
misha <at> gomisha <dot> com
Automated Software Testing Solutions
http://www.gomisha.com

[Serge]

Thank you for your reasonable and detailed suggestions.
This feature will probably look like you described it, however, it will be plain (no sub-projects) and probably without reminders.
Though we can not add 'Project' feature in the nearest (October) update, we have added it to our development plan for one of the next updates.
Have a nice day,

[gomisha]

I realized I omitted to mention another part of this feature - Project View. Just as there is a Task List View right now where I can see all my tasks in a list, I'd like to be able to see all my projects in a list and sort them - by due date, importance, etc. Maybe this was how you understood this feature, but I wanted to raise this point, in case I wasn't clear from my earlier posts.

Thanks for adding this feature to your development plan and I'm happy to sense your openness in making your great product even better, based on user feedback.
_________________
-- Misha
misha <at> gomisha <dot> com
Automated Software Testing Solutions
http://www.gomisha.com

[Serge]

Yes, something like that, not a view but a panel with a few columns users will be able to sort tasks by.
Thank you for your kind words.