This is the first of 5 short forms to open a new TaskMeister account.

This is where basic information about the system administrator would go. You can click on the name of any field on this form for pop-up help about that field.

Check this box if you have a discount code through our Business Partner Program. The code would have been given to you by the account representative who presented TaskMeister to you.

If you wish to learn about our Business Partner Program, please email info@bizware.com or call Peter Shikli at 949-369-1638.

This is the second of 5 short forms to open a new Task Meister account. It is where we get your payment information.

You can click on the name of any field on this form for pop-up help about that field. Using your Preferences, you will be able to update this information later.

Pressing the "I Agree" button is how you indicate your agreement to the paragraph above it. Please read the Terms and Conditions link.

This is the third of 5 short forms to open a new TaskMeister account. On this form, the System Administrator, who is responsible for the data and operation of the account, provides contact information.

You can click on the name of any field on this form for pop-up help about that field.

This is the fourth of 5 short forms to open a new TaskMeister account. It will create new users, including your employees, contractors, etc.

You will be able to easily add, modify, or delete users later using your Preferences button, so only add essential users at this point. Do not add every employee, only those who will use TaskMeister.

Use the "Submit" button with each new user, and you will see them appended to the table listing. When finished, press the "Done Adding Users" button for the next setup form.

This is the fifth of 5 short forms to open a new TaskMeister account. It is the same form you can access anytime using your "Preferences" button. It allows you to setup the picklists your TaskMeister users can select.

The opening picklist values are just examples to help you enter your own. Delete, add, change as you wish. Click on the name of each picklist (Departments, Projects, etc.) for help on entering their picklists. The pencil and trash can icon are for editing and deleting existing picklist values. The "Enter New" button under each picklist allows you to enter new values to your picklists.

You can also change the name of the picklist itself, but we suggest using this advanced feature after you gain a bit of experience using TaskMeister as is.

The Status picklist is fixed as-is since TaskMeister uses task status to automate certain things, like notifying you when a task is completed (Status changed to "Done"). You can add and edit Status values in your Workflow preferences, but that is a powerful and advanced feature we strongly suggest you not use until you are comfortable with TaskMeiser's default workflow.

This is the user's login password. Enter it without punctuation or spaces. It is case sensitive, for example, "BigJoe" will not allow access if the password was set as "Bigjoe".

A good password is often two short words with an underscore in between, for example, big_joe. If you can make the words come from different languages the user knows, for example, joe_grande, you will have a better password. Although mixed case passwords are more secure, they are also easier to forget, so not recommended. Use at least 6 characters.

Following convention, what is typed displays as asterisks so no one can see the password on the user's monitor.

Each user is responsible to keep their password secret. Leaving it around a desk or on Post-It notes allows others to access the account. Pretending to be the legitimate user, they could post tasks that look like they are from the real user, add notes to the tasks of others in a way that appears to have come from the real user. If any user enters a valid username and password, TaskMeister will consider them the real user in all respects, and the real user will be responsible for whatever they do.

This is also called a login user ID. Most often, this is the person's first initial and last name, no space or period, all lowercase. John Smith, for example, would be jsmith.

Keeping a username secret is not as important as keeping the password a secret. Unlike a password, there is no way to change a username, and no need to.

This is the same as the Username of the person whose calendar the guest is to visit. In the uncommon case that the host account prefers to use a password to restrict guests, the guest will be asked for it in the window after pressing the "Guest Login" button.

Using guest access is an advanced feature.

If your TaskMeister account has sub-accounts, they will be listed here so you can assign tasks within such sub-accounts.

A single task may only be assigned to one company even if employees of another company are involved - best is to pick the company that is responsible for (or benefits most from) the task.

Sysadmins should see the Admin section for help on setting up sub-accounts or "child" companies from your "parent" company.

The Assigned By field displays the person who originally assigned or created the task.

TaskMeister fills this in automatically from the information about the logged in user. This cannot be changed as part of TaskMeister's digital signature process. This insures that one person cannot assign a task (without proper traceability) on the part of another.

If you are acting on behalf of another to add a task, put some words in the notes section about who asked you to assign the task. If the task is the resolution of a meeting or email, note that as well. If the task is essentially assigned by another report or document, place a reference link to it in the Ref field.

The individual the task is currently assigned to, ie. the person responsible to take the task to its next Status.

When adding or editing a task, the Assigned To picklist shows all the employees, customers, and system administrators available to do tasks. If this list gets too long, you can reduce it via your Admin settings under your preference for work groups.

Tasks and events may have files attached to them.

TaskMeister gives you a way to provide two bits of information about attachments. You can provide a user-friendly name that users will see and understand.  The second bit of information is the actual file name, which is often a cryptic abbreviation. Most people use the browse button to find the file to attach on their local hard drive.

To get the popup where you can enter the user-friendly name and browse for the actual attachment file, click the "Add Attachment". It will allow you to add as many attachments as you wish.

Once you have attachments, they're listed with edit pencil icons to change their names and trash can icons to delete them.

Use the picklist to select the Coordinator responsible for the corresponding user, organization, and task.

Note that the default value entered by the system is often the right

This is the date the task or subtask is first assigned. It is set by TaskMeister when the task is first entered and it cannot be changed. That is part of our digital signature process that insures proper task accountability.

By not being subject to modifications, all parties know that the task could not have been assigned after the fact, ie. the Assigned Date made a week ago so as to imply a lack of performance on the task. The Assigned Date is thus real and the time since is a real metric of productivity.

This is a user-entered date, usually to indicate the work was done but yet to be tested or uploaded (after which point it is Done). It should also be accompanied by changing the task status to "Developed".

When entering a date, you may enter the entire date (02/18/07) or let the computer fill in missing info, for example, enter "2/18" and the computer will convert it to 02/18/07 (if the current year is 2007).

This is the date when a task is set to status "Done". It is set by TaskMeister when the task status us set to "Done" and saved and it cannot be changed. That is part of our digital signature process that insures proper task accountability.

By not being subject to modifications, all parties know that the task could not have been Done after the fact, ie. the Done Date made a week ago so as to imply a lack of performance on the task. The DoneDate is thus real and the time since is a real metric of productivity.

The date the task should be complete as determined by the person assigning the task, ie. the date its Status will be changed to "Done".

When entering a due date or ETA, you may enter the entire date (02/18/02) or let the computer fill in missing info, for example, enter "2/18" and the computer will convert it to 02/18/02 (if the current year is 2002).

You may also use shorthand like "+7 days" and the computer will calculate the ETA as 7 days from today. Other shorthand you may use are:
* "+2 weeks"
* "-1 month" (one month ago)
* "next Monday" (or any other day of the week, including abbreviations like "next Mon")
* "next month" calculates the date one month from today

There are many more abbreviations the system will recognize -- experiment and the worst that can happen is the system will not understand, consider it the same as blank, and make it today's date.

Note: "ETA" comes from the common airline term, "Estimated Time of Arrival".

The Department field helps you categorize tasks by the organization's department responsible for the task results, typically the department requesting the task.

This is useful when you want to see only the tasks related to a particular department in the task list table. Then you can see how many tasks a department is requesting as a cost control measure, or as a performance metric when Department Managers wish to verify that they're getting their share of your services.

Your System Administrator can add, delete, or modify the picklist values available for the Department field to stay current to the departments in your company. Your sysadmin can also change the name of this list from Department to anything you wish, for example, "Group", "Office Location", "Division", etc.

The Task Description contains the details of what the task is designed to accomplish.

Be brief by not describing in detail how a task is to be done, but do make clear what the measurable result is to be. Making it measurable is the key. Don't say "Add online help", which can be interpreted and satisfied in many ways, but say something as specific as "Add help links to each field on New Invoice Form".

Break a task into two parts. In the first part, summarize any essential background and what the task is to accomplish, that is, give the "why" of the task. Separated by a paragraph break, begin the second part with the words, "By this task," and focus entirely on instructions to the implementer, that is, give the "what to do" of the task. For both sections, refer to entries in the Ref field below the task description rather than reptype information available elsewhere. Allowed, even recommended, is to put nothing more in the second part than "By this task, implement paragraphs 2 to 4 in section 3.1 of the referenced Functional Description", for example, if such a document exists.

After writing a Task Description, ask yourself, "How will I be able to know that this task has been completed to my satisfaction?"

A handy way to remember the essentials of a good task description is the SMART acronym as defined below:
Specific
Measurable
Aligned (with the overall project goals)
Realistic
Time-bound

Note that when a task goes into the testing phase after development, an independent tester often has nothing more than the Task Description to test against.

Do not change an existing Task Description unless absolutely necessary - use the Notes section to add information, expand on a topic, etc. Changing the Task Description will automatically place a copy of the old task description in the notes section (making it unnecessarily long if you keep doing this) with your user ID as part of our task traceability process.

Remember that the Task Description is a type of contract between the Assigned By and the Assigned To people - you can't pull the rug out from under someone working on the task by changing your requirements without repercussions.

Note that you can use guides to help assemble specific types of task descriptions. Click the help icon to the right of the Guides button.

TaskMeister automatically emails notifications when certain changes take place in a task. See the more info about that.

You can turn that automatic notification off for the displayed task with this feature. You may want to do that in the following cases:

a) You're not quite ready to tell everyone about the task you're adding or changing, perhaps you're still looking for that last bit of data. If you have lots of data still missing or you see a need to not tell people about the task for a while, consider entering it as a Figment (see main menu bar), and turning it into a task later.

b) You'd rather introduce and discuss the task instead of catching the recipient off guard with an automatic notification.

c) You're breaking a project into several tasks and you don't want people to get lots of disconnected email notifications about each task. You'd rather send them one email that pulls everything together and refers to the tasks.

d) The displayed task is a dependent task. There's another task that must be done first. You don't want the Assigned-To person distracted or confused. Make sure the main task's description tells the Assigned-To to work on the dependent task afterwards and mentions it in the Related Task field.

Note that whether you turn automatic notifications on or off, that has no bearing on the cc recipients in the task notes. If you put someone in the cc field, they will always get the note with a link to the task record.

The hours authorized, sometimes abbreviated to H_a, is the total number of hours authorized to complete this task.

It is the Assigned To person's responsibility to seek a sufficient number of hours to complete the task, before starting the task if possible. Surprises happen, and in those cases, the Assigned To person should advise the Assigned By person of the problem and request more hours to continue. A task with more hours worked than authorized will require an explanation.

Note that if the number of hours authorized seems too many, that is also a good reason to look carefully at the task description, maybe even talk to the Assigned By person. It's an indication that expectations regarding the task scope may not be synchronized.

An in-house field representing the number of hours billable to the client of the task. Sometimes abbreviated to H_b.

If this is more than the Hours Authorized, the transaction notes should contain information as to why, for example, a verbal OK to add hours or a decision based on the expediency of finishing the task. A common way to get more hours authorized is to cite the request in the transaction notes with a cc: to the client, and await an approval response as a follow-on transaction note.

This may be more than the Hours Worked if effort from someone else was part of the task, or if reusable code (paid by someone else) was part of the task deliverable.

This hours worked field, sometimes abbreviated to H_w, displays the current number of hours worked by the “Assigned To” individual for the task.

Note that when breaking a task into subtasks, each subtask has its own Hw, and the Hw fields for all subtasks will add up to the Hw of the main parent task. Once you break a task into subtasks, use the Hw of each subtask to track your hours worked.

This is an integer that uniquely identifies each task. You may not change it. The system assigns these sequentially as tasks are created throughout TaskMeister.

For certain important tasks, you may wish to keep a manager, team member, or even a client "in the loop" on the task’s status even though they may not be directly involved in the task itself. By selecting their name from this field's pick list, you are instructing TaskMeister to include them in its automatic email-based notifications, for example, when a task Status changes to "Done" or when the hours change.

An "In the Loop" person gets all the automatic notification of the "Assigned By" person, hence there is no point selecting the same person for both.

A common use of this is the case of an employee assigning a task to himself after a verbal OK from the manager/customer who is the real "Assigned By" for notification.

You may have as many "In the Loop" people as you wish -- just hold down the Ctrl key when clicking on each additional name (PCs).

People who are "In the Loop" do not automatically get emailed transaction notes. Such notes often cover activity details, somewhat like a running blog related to the task. An "In the Loop" person is usually a big cheese, someone who doesn't want to see the details in the Notes, just the big picture, major changes, and the results. You can of course always add them to the cc of the note to copy them.

This is the two-digit dash number of a task ID for a subtask. It is also the line number of a table listing subtasks.  The first L# is the breakout of the original task into a subtask to the task's original Assigned-To worker.

A task ID=12345, for example, may have 3 subtasks with record IDs:
12345-01
12345-02
12345-03
where 12345-01 is assigned to the original task's Assigned-To worker and has the original hours authorized less the hours authorized in subtasks 12345-02 and 12345-03.

The Linked To field is part of the Refs section and is the second of two fields.

The fields directly below the Refs term is the name the user sees, for example "Bizware". The Linked To field is the actual URL that the name sends them to, for example, "http://www.bizware.com". See help for the Refs field for complete information about these two fields.

The Refs links are a real virus risk. If it links to an executable program or even a data file with a macro virus, clicking on it may infect your computer with the virus. You are responsible to maintain virus protection software to prevent that. If you are unsure of virus issues, do not use Refs to link, and do not click on it to link to a URL.

The Refs section provides a method to link to other online resources related to the task.

This link is commonly another web page, but it can also be an image (gif and jpg are displayed by the browser directly) or the multimedia (sound & video) that browsers support.

It can also be other files used as data by other programs. A link to report.doc, for example, would open your MS Word wordprocessor with the report.doc displayed because your computer is probably set to recognize the doc file extension as an MS Word document. The same is usually true for xls to open MS Excel spreadsheets, and many other file types. To learn more, read the help on your computer about how to associate the programs you have to file types.

If you link to a file type that your computer doesn't recognize, your browser will prompt you to either associate it on the spot to a program that will then load it, to save it to your hard drive and deal with it later, or to cancel out.

A link is composed of two fields, entered separately on the new task or edit task forms. See their help for more info.

The Refs links are a real virus risk. If it links to an executable program or even a data file with a macro virus, clicking on it may infect your computer with the virus. You are responsible to maintain virus protection software (Norton, McAfee, etc.) to prevent that. If you are unsure of virus issues, do not use Refs to link to a URL.

The name given a task by the person who creating it.

Tip: When entering, keep it informative enough so users recognize the task on a list, but not so long that it'll wrap in a table view. Also, try to make it sort well if that is how a user will try to find it on a long list, for example, "Password Encription Redesign" is better than "Redesign Password Encription" or "The Password Encription Redesign".

The By field in the Notes section is the person entering the note.

As part of TaskMeister's digital signature process, it is set as the user who is logged in and using the entry form to enter the note, and it cannot later be changed. If the note is entered at the request of another, the text of the note should reflect that.

The cc: field is used to easily copy any other user about the note.

The user(s) selected get an email with the note text and a link to the rest of the record above so repeating the background info in the Note isn't necessary.

The Date field for a note is the date the note was added.

Although it defaults to today's date, it may be changed at the time of entry to another date, typically to reflect a meeting, conversation, email, etc. that occured in the past. It is part of the digital signature process in that once entered, the Date and the rest of the transaction note cannot be changed. Anotherwords, you cannot change what you said after the fact - you can only add another note to modify or take back what you said.

These are the hours spent by the person in the "By" field reviewing, testing, and commenting in the notes about the task's work product.

Each note carries its own security level (Sec Lev) based on picklist values.

Note that this reflects a role-based hierarchical security, for example, a note with the default "Guest" Sec Level can be seen by anyone, whereas a note with an "Employee" can be seen by users with an employee's access and by sysadmins who have a higher access than employees.

The Note field is a collection of historical information about the task above.

It can be a few words about a problem encountered, but then make sure you send email to whomever you think should read the note and help you via the CC field picklist. If it's a note to yourself about the task, no need to cc anyone.

It can be used to show partial completion on a task that has several steps, but often better is breaking out several tasks, each which would have a well-defined completion step. Sometimes we're surprised and we reach an intermediate step that needs documentation, and then perhaps a decision about options. Document that in the Notes section.

If you figure out how to do something required by the task, the task notes are a good place to write down how you solved the problem. If you get a similar task in the future, you can always look up a similar task in the past and look for tips.

Certain notes are generated automatically by TaskMeister as part of our task traceability. For example, if a task Status is changed to Done, the Note section will include that transaction. Likewise if Hours are changed or several other significant task changes occur, TaskMeister updates tracks it automatically in the Notes section.

As part of TaskMeister's digital signature process, notes may not be changed retroactively. This prevents the revision of a directive that produces embarrassing results. If someone approves a task, for example, they can later change the Status back to "Proposed" but the Notes section will log the fact that it was approved, and that perhaps work was done in the interim.

This field allows categorizing the task note and can be:

Normal - The default and most common note type

Review - This refers to notes added as part of a review or test of the task's work product.

Instruction - Where the note typically goes to the Assigned-By person after a review, giving them guidance on how to adjust the work product of the task.

The "Priority" setting is where the individual assigning the tasks can indicate the priority of the task by entering a number in relation to its urgency.

TaskMeister doesn’t care how you use priority. You may use a system where a priority of "1" would be the most urgent and would be prioritized above those tasks numbered 2, 3, 4, etc. or you might want a value of 10 to be the highest priority. You might also use priority to establish the actual task order for a given project. You could have “1” equal the first task and the sequence would end with a number equal to the number of steps in the project. Any positive rational number maybe used. Additionally you are not limited to the amount of tasks that you prioritize under a particular number. If you feel that you have 20 equally important tasks, they can all be prioritized as "1".

If you use text-based priorities like "hot", "important", "less important", and so on, you will not be able to select priority ranges, for example, all tasks with priorities from 1 to 3, only direct text matches. For that reason, we suggest using numeric (1, 1.1, 1.2, 2, etc.) or alpha (a, ab, ac, ad, b, etc) priorities.

The key is to set an approach to prioritizing and then to use the same system across your organization. If you have no such system, we suggest using a decimal priority such as making a Priority=1 as the highest priority, that is, the task to do first. Then make Priority=2 the second task to do, and so on. If you later discover a task that should be done between the two, make that Priority=1.5.

Also, see the "More Info link" below.

Use the Project field picklist to categorize your task under a specific Project.

This is useful when you later want to view a task list that contains only tasks related to a specific project. You can quickly see which are done, which remain to be done, which are overdue, etc. for a particular project -- a handy snapshot for a Project Manager.

Your System Administrator can add, delete, or modify the picklist values available for the Project field to stay current to the projects at hand. He/she can also change the term Projects to something more appropriate to your organization, for example, "Product Type", "Country", or "Category" because you don't use projects all that much.

The Refs section allows you to provide help for users with a link to another online resource.

This link is commonly another web page, but it can also be an image (gif and jpg are displayed by the browser directly) or the multimedia (sound & video) that browsers support.

It can also be other files used as data by other programs. A link to report.doc, for example, would open your MS Word wordprocessor with the report.doc displayed because your computer is probably set to recognize the doc file extension as an MS Word document. The same is usually true for xls to open MS Excel spreadsheets, and many other file types. To learn more, read the help on your computer about how to associate the programs you have to file types.

If you link to a file type that your computer doesn't recognize, your browser will prompt you to either associate it on the spot to a program that will then load it, to save it to your hard drive and deal with it later, or to cancel out.

A link is composed of two fields. The one directly below the Refs term is the name the user sees, for example "WebTeam". The Linked To field is the actual URL that the name sends users to, for example, "http://www.webteam.com".

Once you have references, they're usually listed with edit pencil icons to change their names and trash can icons to delete them. If the references were put there automatically by TaskMeister, perhaps because you added a task from some other module, then you can't edit or delete those references.

The Refs links are a virus risk. If it links to an executable program or even a data file with a macro virus, clicking on it may infect your computer with the virus. You are responsible to maintain virus protection software to prevent that. If you are unsure of virus issues, do not use Refs to link, and do not click on it to link to a URL.

Sometimes tasks are related because one must be done before the other. You can learn how to do one task based on what was noted on another task, or some combination of both.

TaskMeister does not use complex project management tools to establish the relationship between tasks. We simply allow you to add tasks to the "Related Tasks" list and use your experience to understand the relationships, which of course you can note in the task description or the notes log at the bottom.

For those of you wishing to use more comprehensive task relationship management tools, drop us an email and we'll point you to online tools that do Gantt Charts, Critical Path Analysis, and lots more using the data from TaskMeister -- we are after all a web service.

The Status field designates where a task is on its path to completion.

Unless your sysadmin added a few additional Status values, this is a pick list with preset values as follows:

Proposed - Tasks are typically first proposed by a manager or client and then reviewed for feasibility and cost. Sometimes tasks are proposed by developers and then reviewed for desirability by the client.

Accepted - The "Assigned To" task implementer has reviewed the task for feasibility and accepted the job of doing it, possibly after a series of iterations summarized in the notes. This often amounts to a contract involving the task description, hours authorized, and ETA, subject to whatever exceptions, terms, conditions were negotiated outside of Task Meister.

Authorized - After both the "Assigned By" and "Assigned To" individuals have reviewed and agreed on the same task details, the "Assigned By" may change the Status to "Authorized", typically indicating responsibility to pay for its implementation. This is often viewed as a mini-contract between the two.

Developed - This indicates the "Assigned To" has completed the task, but that some other task such as testing is still required. If so, another testing task is entered, typically with the task to test in the Related Task list. If task completion includes development and testing, Status may go directly to Done.

Done - This indicates the task is completed and operational, that no more work is called out in the task, and that the "Assigned By" may now be responsible for payment to the "Assigned To". Done tasks can no longer be changed.

On Hold - The task has been put on hold. The reason should be in the task's transaction notes.

Cancelled - The task has been cancelled, with the reason in the task's transaction notes. This is preferable to deleting a task since this approach maintains the historical info on the task, ie why it was cancelled and by whom.

Much like a regular task description, a subtask's description details what is to be done just within the subtask.

No need to repeat the parent task description since it will display above a subtask's description. You can have a subtask description like, "Do the QA for the above task" confident that the subtask worker will be able to see what task is to be QA'ed.

This is the name of a subtask.

Note that there is no need to repeat the parent Task Name in the subtask's name since they will either be displayd together or the display will append the subtask name to the parent task's name. For a "Remediate ABC123.pdf", for example, the subtask name should be just "QA" for quality assurance, not ""Remediate ABC123.pdf: QA" or even "QA for ABC123.pdf".

Although we should try to avoid this by producing separate tasks, perhaps with the "Related Tasks" field showing interrelationships, we sometimes need to assign one part of a task to one person and another part to another person.

A common case is where a client has presented a billable task where the deliverable needs to be reviewed (quality assurance), but we don't want to confuse the client by breaking the task they approved into two tasks that will need explanation.  In this case, we can use a subtask to manage the QA part of the work which is routinely assigned to another worker.

Another case is where a client collected several tasks into one task without realizing that the task description became more of a project description. We could break that into separate tasks as is good practice, particularly if we can meet a due date only by having several workers doing their part in parallel. The problem is that some clients prefer not to see and manage tasks at such level of detail. We can educate and argue for separate tasks, but sometimes it's best to use subtasks to track such delegation internally, leaving the main original task to collect subtask data.

A third case is when a task's Assigned-To realizes in mid-task that they need help from another worker to complete a task. Giving that person a support subtask allows hours and task notes to collect in one place related to the main task.

Subtasks are displayed in a table in order to enforce their relationship to the main task, for example that the subtask's authorized hours must total into the original task's unchanged authorized hours.

Subtasks can be added in the Subtask area of a regular parent task, which is also where their hours authorized (Ha) can be edited by the Project Lead or Coordinator. That is also where you can display more details about all the subtasks of a parent task.

Subtasks appear in task list tables alongside regular tasks and can be edited from such tables with their edit pencils to display a form much like a regular task edit form.

Note that we currently do not allow subtasks to be deleted. You can accomplish much the same by reducing their hours authorized and worked to zero.

Keep in mind that regular tasks can be reassigned to a different worker without the use of subtasks by simply changing the Assigned To worker. In this case, the new reassigned worker picks up all the hours authorized and worked, as well as any task notes, produced by the previous worker. This normally requires the agreement of the original and reassigned workers.

The Task Description Guide is a wizard-like guide intended to help users create an effective task description in Task Meister.

There are currently two different guides available but these can be modified or other "guides" can be created as needed by your sysadmin. The existing guides are:

• Bug Report
• New Feature Request

To use a Task Description Guide, simply click on the "Guide" button next to "Task Description" when you are adding a "New Task". You can then choose which guide to use.

It is not necessary to use the Task Description Guide when creating a new task, but if your task does fit into any of the "Guide" categories it is recommended so the programmers are provided with all the necessary information to complete the task.

Each task note's Hrs field can reflect the number of hours spent instructing or reviewing if one of those were selected in the task note Type to its left. These hours can be collected into a new task to the user in the note's "By" field using the collect icon atop a new task's add form.

Each task note can be designated by one of three picklist values:

Normal - This is the default and used for every note except those that fall into the two types below.
 

Instruction - Used when instruction was given related to this task to the "Assigned To" person doing the task by the user in the note's "By" field.
 

Review - Used when this task's results were reviewed or tested by the user in the note's "By" field.

For the above Instruction or Review note types, the "Hrs" field to its right will reflect the number of hours spent instructing or reviewing. These hours can be collected into a new task to the user in the note's "By" field using the collect icon atop a new task's add form.

Besides the picklist of TaskMeister users, anyone with an e-mail address can be cc'd on task notes. Click on the "Email" button underneath the preset CC list and add the e-mail address of the person you'd like to keep in the loop.

These people external to TaskMeister will get the note copy, along with the task info, but they will not be able to use that to enter TaskMeister.

Many task management systems provide a great deal of functionality regarding prioritization. TaskMeister does not, and for a good reason.

Using a project management tool (like MS Project) to set priorities is a complex process. A network of task interdependencies, for example, require Gantt Charts, Critical Path Analysis, and several other tools. Priorities can change quickly due to time and budget fluctuations, which are often tracked using other project accounting software. Quite often, an emergency pops up requiring immediate tasking, and the scheduling produced by such project management tools is just as immediately obsolete. If recovery and replanning is not quick and effective, project workers learn to ignore its planning schedules.

Such complex tools require a great deal of education just to understand them, and more to learn how to apply them. Used improperly, complex prioritizing tools hurt task management more than help. At the very least, they will take time to use, sometimes a lot of time if you're often re-prioritizing and rearranging your tasks instead of just doing them.

A common response is to use trained Project Managers who know the use of such tools to set the priorities of tasks for others. We do not subscribe to this approach for task implementors who are knowledge workers, and others with skillsets in arranging their work plan for personal effectiveness. Project Managers can and should set priorities and make plans for project milestones, but at the level of planning tasks (under 8 hours), the task implementor is often the best choice for such decisions.

For surprisingly good reasons, the implementor may violate prioritizing as taught to Project Managers. A common example is to do the many short tasks (an hour or less) first, regardless of their importance, just to present the implementer with a shorter list of tasks to then prioritize. It may seem illogical to do less important tasks first, but that is outweighed by the implementor's increased ability to reason over the remaining tasks, and to apply the many unspoken prioritization rules gained through experience.

Another common example is to prioritize work activities together not by dependencies (which task must be complete before the other can be started), but by effective resource utilization. A collection of tasks may be prioritized to be done together because once the programmer lays out the software to be modified, all related modifications should be done before the programmer stops thinking about that piece of software.

Another grouping may be because the task implementor is aware of how hard it is to get the attention span of a co-worker. Hence all tasks requiring that co-worker are prioritized together so as to force a dependency that is not obvious to a Project Manager. Likewise, tasks may be grouped or prioritized together because they can be done only at a particular location, or because they can be done in the normally dead space of a weekend at home.

Yet another seemingly illogical prioritization is to do the hard, complex, or leading-edge tasks first, the ones that may not even end up as possible. This avoids wasting time on easy tasks that may be more important but become irrelevant if they depend on the hard task that cannot be done.

Lastly, task priorities may be set by politics, an illogical reality the implementor is often aware of and should not be disregarded. If the implementor's boss makes her personal preferences known, a savvy implementor will incorporate that into his planning and prioritizing, and a tool that doesn't will be disregarded.

TaskMeister is intended to be a simple tool with a learning curve measured in minutes. It is designed to leverage the many man-years of experience the task implementor brings to the table to plan, prioritize, and execute her own tasks. Learn to use the task table edit that allows editing all task priorities at once. Learn to use the Schedule button that takes a first guess at task due dates based on task priorities and the implementer's available hours per week. These are quick and easy ways to leverage what you know (or just feel) about setting priorities.

Because TaskMeister is a web service, it can use standard XML techniques to obtain task prioritization from third-party analysis tools in those cases where the implementor is not the best choice to set priorities.

The Type field of a task is customizable to categorize tasks in whatever way you need. Your System Administrator designates the allowable values in a picklist that anyone can use.

For software development, this can be "Bug Fixes", "Enhancements", "Gathering Data", "New Development", or "Research". For general building contractors, this can be "Design", "Soils and Foundation", "Framing", "Mechanical", "Carpentry", "Exterior Finish", etc.

The key is to ask yourself if you need to categorize your tasks and view them in tables selected by something other than Project, Department, Status, and other fields TaskMeister already provides.

Your Sysadmin can also change the Type field to any other term you wish in case you don't need to group tasks by type but do have another categorization that you wish to use, for example, "Language" or "Special Designation".

Enter text you seek in the "Contains Text:" and TaskMeister will find tasks that have those exact words in either their task name, task description, or task notes -- according to which boxes you check next to it..

We support partial matches in the sense that "bug" will match "bugs" and "buggy".

Note that the other selection conditions apply. If you selected Department to equal "Sales", for example, and typed "bug" in "Contains", the tasks shown in the task list display will be only Sales Department tasks containing "bug". If you get no matches to "Contains Text", make some or all of the picklists "Any".

This field allows you to view tasks based on their Assigned, Due, Developed, and/or Done dates.

You can enter either a range of dates under a heading by using the From: and To: fields or a single date in either field which will then select all tasks prior to or after the date entered depending on the field used.

Dates are entered using the mm/dd/yy format, example March 2, 2005 would be entered as 03/02/05.

When searching for a date range, you may enter the entire date (02/18/02) or let the computer fill in missing info, for example, enter "2/18" and the computer will convert it to 02/18/02 (if the current year is 2002).

You may also use shorthand like "+7 days" and the computer will calculate the date as 7 days from today. Other shorthand you may use are:
today+7 (same as "+7 days" above)
t+7 (same as today+7)

-7 days (7 days ago)
today-7 (7 days ago)
t-7 (7 days ago)

today (today that is, the current date)
t (today, faster than typing out this common one)

+2 weeks (today + 14 days)

+1 month (today one month from now, for example 4/18/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)
-1 month (today one month ago, for example 2/18/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)

next Monday (today + 7 days and then as many as needed to get to a Monday. You can also use any other day of the week, including 3-letter abbreviations like "next Tue".)

1st (the first day of the current month, for example 3/1/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)
last (the last day of the current month, for example 3/31/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)
1st+ (the first day of the next month, for example 4/1/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)
last+ (the last day of the next month, for example 4/30/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)
1st- (the first day of the previous month, for example 2/1/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)
last- (the last day of the previous month, for example 2/29/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)

year1st (the first day of the current year, for example 1/1/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)
yearlast (the last day of the current year, for example 12/31/16 if the current date is 3/18/16)
year1st+ (the first day of the next year, for example 1/1/17 if the current date is 3/18/16)
yearlast+ (the last day of the next year, for example 12/31/17 if the current date is 3/18/16)
year1st- (the first day of the previous year, for example 1/1/15 if the current date is 3/18/16)
yearlast- (the last day of the previous year, for example 12/31/15 if the current date is 3/18/16)

These abbreviations are most useful for saved selections. For example, if you enter "year1st+" as a starting date and "yearlast+" as an ending date, your selection condition will cover next year no matter when you invoke that saved selection.

There are more abbreviations the system will recognize -- experiment and the worst that can happen is the system will not understand, consider it the same as blank.

This pick list contains the default and saved task selection conditions. Select a condition from this list and click "GO" to display a task list using the conditions specified.

Once a selection has been made from the picklist, instead of clicking GO, you can change any of the other variables on the page. You can then use these settings one time to select tasks, or you can save them under the current selection or create a new selection.

To save selection conditions, read the help of the "Save This Selection" field near the bottom of the Select page.

The Task ID is an integer number that uniquely identifies a task. There can only be one Task ID for each task. By typing a number below "Jump To Task ID:" on the "Select" page and pressing the "Go" button next to it, you can go directly to the display of that one task.

Use this option whenever you know the Task ID since it's so fast - much better than entering picklist choices, scanning the task list table and clicking on the task you want.

Selecting the check box and typing a name into the “Selection Name” field will cause TaskMeister to save the current selection so that it can be reused.

This saved selection will become a choice under “Jump to Saved Selection” at the top of the Selection page.

In your
Admin  -> Personal Preferences -> Tasks -> Saved Selections
section, you can look through everyone's saved selections and add the ones you like to your own.

The Account list shows your account name and your sub-accounts. You can select tasks within one (sub)account within many if you select more than one.

Note how when you select a (sub)account, all the other picklists change so that only that (sub)account's picklist values are shown.

Tasks may or not have attachment files. This allows you to search by their attachments.

You can first specify tasks with attachment files greater than a KB size you specify. This is a good tool to use when your account is nearing its storage capacity limit. By finding old tasks with large attachments, you can save storage by removing obsolete attachments.

Below that you can specify if the search results should display only the tasks as in a regular task list, or as a task list with new columns for the attachment's name file name, and size in KB.

This allows you to search for tasks by the picklist values in the task's Coordinator field, that is, the person who is coordinating the task. You can select one picklist value by clicking on it or several by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting, in which case tasks will be selected if any of those people are coordinators.

This allows you to search for tasks by the picklist values in the task's Department field. You can select one picklist value by clicking on it or several by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting.

This allows you to search for tasks by the picklist values in the task's Assigned To field, that is, the person who is to do the task. You can select one picklist value by clicking on it or several by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting, in which case tasks will be selected if any of those people are doing them.

This allows you to search for tasks by the picklist values in the task's Assigned By field, that is, the person who originally assigned the task. You can select one picklist value by clicking on it or several by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting, in which case tasks will be selected if any of those people assigned them.

The Priority section allows you to select tasks for viewing based on their priority as long as the priority values are positive rational numbers.

TaskMeister provides a pick list to define the relationship between the priority values entered into the fields. The choices are:
All (any priority value matches)
Between (the two values to the right of the picklist)
= (equal to the first value to the right of the picklist)
=< (less than or equal to the firstvalue to the right of the picklist)
=> (greater than or equal to the firstvalue to the right of the picklist)

This allows you to search for tasks by the picklist values in the task's Project field. You can select one picklist value by clicking on it or several by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting.

A task may be broken into subtasks. All the selection conditions apply to both tasks and subtasks. The radio buttons in the Subtasks area of the selection form is where you can designate which of those you want. You can click on one of the following choices

Main tasks + subtasks: This is the most common selection. This will select matching tasks that have no subtasks and the subtasks of those tasks that have subtasks. This option doesn't include tasks that have subtasks or all the hours (Ha, Hw and Hb) will be listed and counted twice, once for a main task and again for its subtasks.

Main tasks: This selects only main tasks that match the other criteria, including those with subtasks. No subtasks will be selected.

Subtasks; This selects only matching subtasks. No main tasks, with or without subtasks, will be selected.

All tasks: This selects all matching tasks and subtasks, yielding tasks mixed with their subtasks.

If you get fewer matches than expected, remember that you will get only the tasks and/or subtasks that match all the other selection conditions entered on this form.

This allows you to search for tasks by the picklist values in the task's Status field. You can select one picklist value by clicking on it or several by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting.

This allows you to search for tasks by the picklist values in the task's Type field. You can select one picklist value by clicking on it or several by holding down the Ctrl key while selecting.

This is where you type the name this saved selection is to have for reuse.

Make it a name that will be found intuitively on a sorted list, for example, "Attachments, Large" instead of "The Tasks With Large Attachments" which would list under T.

Since your account users can all share saved selections they've set up, give your saved selection an indication of who is involved, for example, "Wilson's Open Tasks" instead of "My Open Tasks".

If your TaskMeister account has sub-accounts, their name may be listed here.

In the task list display table, this is the individual the task is currently assigned to, ie. the person responsible to take the task to its next Status. This is originally entered from the "Assigned To" picklist.

If you click on their name, your default email program will prepare a message to them. You can use this to send a quick question or comment about a task to the person it's assigned to, but if you display the task and do the same thing in the task notes with a cc to that person, you do the same thing, but the recipient automatically gets a link to the task so you need not repeat as much, and the task notes keeps a log of all such communication in one place. Better than digging through email archives to see what someone said about the task.

Tasks may have files attached to them.

TaskMeister provides two bits of information about them. The name that you see (user friendly), and the actual file name (often cryptic). If you click the name that you see, the file itself is displayed.

If your browser can't display this attached file, it tries to find an application that you have told your computer to try, typically based on the attached file's extension. If all else fails, your browser will ask to save the attached file to your computer, perhaps so you can later find an application that can display it.

The commands available for a task on each row are represented by icons:

The time clock icon , which is only displayed for tasks authorized to you, allows you to start the TimeMeister application running for just that task. This is a good way to punch in on the online time clock to work on the selected task. To learn more about TimeMeister, click the same time clock icon above the task list table.

The pencil icon  brings up a form to edit the task.

The briefcase icon displays a pop-up that makes it easy to collect information about tasks and then to paste it or link to it elsewhere. Better than the standard clip-and-paste since you can put more than one item into the briefcase, and it's not replaced if you use the clip-and-paste for something else.

The trash can icon deletes the task. Except for tasks entered in error, it is usually better to just change a task's Status to "On Hold" or "Canceled" than to delete it. Such tasks no longer appear in most lists, but you can refer to them for historic info.

Depending on the item or your access level, you may not have all icons available.

The Coordinator responsible for the corresponding user, organization, and task.

This is the date the task or subtask is first assigned. It is set by TaskMeister when the task is first entered and it cannot be changed. That is part of our digital signature process that insures proper task accountability.

By not being subject to modifications, all parties know that the task could not have been assigned after the fact, ie. the Assigned Date made a week ago so as to imply a lack of performance on the task. The Assigned Date is thus real and the time since is a real metric of productivity.

This is a user-entered date, usually to indicate the work was done but yet to be tested or uploaded (after which point it is Done).

This is the date when a task is set to status "Done". It is set by TaskMeister when the task status us set to "Done" and saved and it cannot be changed. That is part of our digital signature process that insures proper task accountability.

By not being subject to modifications, all parties know that the task could not have been Done after the fact, ie. the Done Date made a week ago so as to imply a lack of performance on the task. The DoneDate is thus real and the time since is a real metric of productivity.

The date the task should be complete as determined by the person assigning the task, ie. the date its Status will be changed to "Done".

The Department field helps categorize tasks by the organization's department responsible for the task results, typically the department requesting the task.

The hours authorized, sometimes abbreviated to H_a, is the total number of hours authorized to complete this task.

An in-house field representing the number of hours billable to the client of the task. Sometimes abbreviated to H_b.

This hours worked field, sometimes abbreviated to H_w, displays the current number of hours worked by the “Assigned To” individual for the task.

This is an integer that uniquely identifies each task. You may not change it. The system assigns these sequentially as tasks are created throughout TaskMeister.

For certain important tasks, a manager, team member, or even a client has been put "in the loop" on the task’s status even though they may not be directly involved in the task itself. TaskMeister includes them in its automatic email-based notifications, for example, when a task Status changes to "Done" or when the hours change.

An "In the Loop" person gets all the automatic notification of the "Assigned By" person. People who are "In the Loop" do not automatically get emailed transaction notes.

The name given a task by the person who created it.

This is the user-defined priority of the task.

Each organization has their own prioritization method. Your sysadmin should describe youtrs here.

If there is no info about that, a good method is a decimal system where 1 is a higher (more important) priority than 2, and 1.3 is a higher priority than 1.4.

The Project field categorizes your task under a specific Project.

Tasks may have external references to support them, such as web pages

TaskMeister provides two bits of information about these Refs. The name that you see (user friendly), and the actual URL link (cryptic). If you click the name that you see, the URL link itself is passed to your browser to display.

Sometimes tasks are related because one must be done before the other. You can learn how to do one task based on what was noted on another task, or some combination of both.

TaskMeister does not use complex project management tools to establish the relationship between tasks. The person adding or editing this task simply added tasks to the "Related Tasks" list. Hopefully, there's a few words in the task description or the notes log at the bottom about these task relationships.

The Status field designates where a task is on its path to completion.

Unless your sysadmin added a few Status values, these are the possible values:

Proposed - Tasks are typically first proposed by a manager or client and then reviewed for feasibility and cost. Sometimes tasks are proposed by developers and then reviewed for desirability by the client.

Accepted - The "Assigned To" task implementer has reviewed the task for feasibility and accepted the job of doing it, possibly after a series of iterations summarized in the notes. This often amounts to a contract involving the task description, hours authorized, and ETA, subject to whatever exceptions, terms, conditions were negotiated outside of Task Meister.

Authorized - After both the "Assigned By" and "Assigned To" individuals have reviewed and agreed on the same task details, the "Assigned By" may change the Status to "Authorized", typically indicating responsibility to pay for its implementation. This is often viewed as a mini-contract between the two.

Developed - This indicates the "Assigned To" has completed the task, but that some other task such as testing is still required. If so, another testing task is entered, typically with the task to test in the Related Task list. If task completion includes development and testing, Status may go directly to Done.

Done - This indicates the task is completed and operational, that no more work is called out in the task, and that the "Assigned By" may now be responsible for payment to the "Assigned To". Done tasks can no longer be changed.

On Hold - The task has been put on hold. The reason should be in the task's transaction notes.

Cancelled - The task has been cancelled, with the reason in the task's transaction notes. This is preferable to deleting a task since this approach maintains the historical info on the task, ie why it was cancelled and by whom.

The Type field of a task is customizable to categorize tasks in whatever way needed. Your System Administrator designates the allowable values in a picklist that anyone can use.

The "All Tasks on TimeMeister" table acts as a switchboard to monitor a group of people using TimeMeister. You can see what tasks they have selected to list on each of their "My Time Meister" time clocks, and which they clicked to run the clock and work on.

For a manager, this is a handy way to see who is doing what without bothering them. Of course, it assumes everyone is actually working on the task they have clicked to put on their clock.

You can click the field names atop each column for pop-up help like this, but they are the same as what you have probably already seen for tasks in TaskMeister.

The edit pencil icon and the trash can icon in the Commands column are the same as in TaskMeister, to bring up the edit form or to delete the task (assuming you have the access to see those command icons).

The clock icons with the line through them are new to TimeMeister. The static ones remove the task from the person's TimeMeister list (unselects them), but do not delete the tasks, as do the trash can icons. The animated (turning) clocks indicate that the user is on the clock for that task, that is, currently working on it. Clicking that clock icon stops their clock, essentially telling them to stop working on that task.

The "Show Active Tasks" button at the bottom reduces the table list to just those tasks where someone is currently on the clock, that is, pressed the start for the task in their "My TimeMeister". The button toggles to "Show All Tasks" which restores the display of all tasks selected by all users for TimeMeister.

Like most TimeMeister pages, they are refreshed every few minutes automatically. But if you want them refreshed immediately, you can press the refresh button at the bottom.

Below that are the buttons to link to the other TimeMeister pages, "My TimeMeister" to run your time clock, "Selected Tasks" to see what tasks you have selected for your TimeMeister, and "Time Log" to see what you have worked on.

The "My TimeMeister" display is intended to be small, to fit in the corner of your browser while you work on other things, like a tablet or cellphone. It lists the tasks you selected earlier, and allows you to click on the task name of your choice to begin working on that task.

Clicking the clock icon to the left of the help icon brings you back to the "Select Tasks for TimeMeister" table where you can click the checkboxes to change the tasks displayed in "My TimeMeister".

Clicking a task name is like punching in to work on that task. A clock icon begins to turn to the left of it to show that you are "on the clock" for that task.The hours worked (HrsW) goes blank, and in the lower part of the screen you can see your hours piling up. The hours assigned are shown, along with the total amount of hours worked (however often you punch in or out on the task). Below that is the number of hours worked on the current stretch since punching in.

Every few minutes, your TimeMeister screen posts the minutes you worked as a fraction of an hour to the main TaskMeister record.

Clicking a running (punched in) task stops the task's time clock from running. Clicking another task also stops the running task, but also starts the newly selected task.

If you reach the number of hours allocated for a task, a warning will pop up and the clock will stop running for that task. You can choose to click its "Continue Anyway" button to get another 15 minutes, and you can repeat this as often as you wish in 15-minute increments to go over the number of hours authorized, presumably to explain the situation later.

If you get distracted and notice that TimeMeister has been running the clock while you are not working on the task, do the following:
1.) Stop the task by clicking on it.
2.) Find the task in TaskMeister in the regular ways.
3.) Click on its edit form, same as you would to change its "Status".
4.) Manually edit its "Hours Worked" to your best guess at how long you actually worked on it.
5.) Go back to TimeMeister and resume. The starting value in hours worked will be as you adjusted it.

The "Select Tasks for TimeMeister" table is how most people begin using TimeMeister by clicking the task list's time clock icon instead of one of its lower mouseover flyout options. In general, you select which tasks to manage using TimeMeister, your online time clock, by clicking their checkboxes and then the "My TimeMeister" button at the bottom. You also get a daily log of how you spent your time, and (if you're a sysadmin) a view of who is using TimeMeister and working on which tasks.

Note that everything in TimeMeister is just different views of data, except when you click on a task in "My TimeMeister" to begin working on it. That means that you can explore TimeMeister freely without worrying about hurting anything. Even if you start a task's clock by accident, you can fix it in TaskMeister by adjusting the task's "Hours Worked" field.

This "Select Tasks for TimeMeister" table looks much like a regular TaskMeister table list of tasks because it is a copy of the tasks you selected with the regular "Select" button. The main difference is the leftmost "Set" column that you can use to select which tasks to track with TimeMeister.

Note that there is no "Set" checkbox for a task on the list where you are not the "Assigned To" on the task. This is because you cannot put someone else's task on your TimeMeister time clock. To do that, it must first be reassigned to you.

As with TaskMeister:

* Each column header is a link to the help for that particular column.

* The up/down arrows next to each column header allows you to sort the table ascending or descending by that column.

* The eye icon, edit icon, and trash can icon on each line allows you to view, edit, or delete the corresponding task (not available to everyone).

The "Select All" and "Deselect All" buttons near the bottom of the table are shortcuts to selecting or un-selecting all the "Set" checkboxes at once.

The "Total Selected" at the bottom shows the hours authorized (Ha) for all tasks selected via the checkboxes. To the right is the net hours left to work on all selected tasks (Ha - Hw). The "Total" below that provides the same information for all tasks on the table, not just the ones selected.

Below that are the three other displays possible via TimeMeister:

"My TimeMeister" is the pop-up you can use like a time clock to punch in and out of tasks (start and stop work), along with its actual URL if you want to paste it into email, bookmarks, etc. The "Time Log" is a report that shows how you have used Time Meister to work on tasks. The "All Tasks on TimeMeister" (not visible for everyone) shows every user on your account, which tasks they've selected for TimeMeister, and which one they are currently working on.

Note that you can use the "Select" button on the menu bar to select tasks in the normal way, but enter criteria for finding the tasks you want to manage via TimeMeister. The resulting table appears with the "Set" checkboxes when you press the the clock icon. And then you can drill down and select just some of the table's tasks by clicking their "Set" checkboxes.

The "TimeMeister Log" is like a timecard report. It lists when you worked on which task and for how long. It is a good way to validate your TaskMeister records, for example, when someone questions how long it took to do something. If you worked in several stretches to accumulate a total number of hours worked on a task, the "TimeMeister Log" can provide the detail of each work stretch.

Every time you click a task in "My TimeMeister" and the clock for it starts running, the "TimeMeister Log" gets an entry.

From the "TimeMeister Log", you can switch to the "Select Tasks for TimeMeister" table either through the clock icon at the top-right of the page or using the "Selected Tasks" button at the bottom. Using the spreadsheet export icon , also along the top, you can export your "TimeMeister Log" as a CSV file type compatible with MS Excel and all spreadsheet programs. At the bottom, you can also switch to see "All Tasks on TimeMeister" using its button.

You can also click on the name of any task listed to display the data view of that task.

Although "TimeMeister Log"'s view defaults to the logged-in user and the current month, you can switch those with picklists to view the log of other users (if you're a sysadmin) or of other past months.

This table has the same structure as the regular task list table, but each of the fields (table cells) are editable. The up/down sort arrows work as before to sort columns, and each column header has its popup help, but the many command icons atop the table are replaced by just one icon.

The H_w displays a popup requesting a date range, and then uses that to extend the editable task list to show the hours worked each day on each task. This presents an easy way to produce a detailed timecard from other media, for example, scraps of paper collected during a week.

This editable table is an ideal way to collect all the tasks in a project into one table, and then adjust the priority or due date of each task to show the order in which you recommend them to be done.

Another use is if you have tested and evaluated a group of tasks and wish to change their Status from "Developed" to "Done", except the few you throw back to "Authorized" with notes about why you didn't pass those.

Another use is if you wish to reassign all the tasks of a project from an overworked "Assigned To" person to someone with more time.

Yet another is if a project is in trouble and you wish to put yourself "In the Loop" for all the related tasks so you can stay closer to their changes.

There are many other uses of this batch task change capability.

Normally, an automatic notification email is generated for the significant change of each task, for example, notifying the "Assigned By" of a task "Status" change. At the bottom of the table is a "Save Without Notifications" checkbox you can use to suppress this. Do this if you're reassigning a dozen tasks, for example, and don't wish the "Assigned To" person to get a dozen emailed notifications instead of the one email you write about his new project responsibility.

The "Update All" saves all the task changes and makes them permanent, while the "Reset" returns all the field values to what they were before you last saved them. Look things over before updating all the tasks because there is no undo command.

Use this option to collect PDF files into remediation task(s), sometimes many thousands of PDFs. You will be led through the steps of a wizard that helps you select the PDFs from existing folders and then to assign analysts to do the OCR, remediation, and QA as subtasks. We call such a collection of PDFs a project and this its Project Table.

If this is your first time using this, click the link to the referenced "Sample Output" to see what your final Project Table may look like.

If you are about to start a project, go to TaskMeister's Admin (from the main menu bar), scroll down to the "Picklists" option near the bottom (visible to sysadmins), and make sure the project name is on that picklist. Add it if necessary.

Then you'll be able to select it from the existing projects picklist on your step-1 popup.

Note that pre-existing tasks identified by the selected project name will not be automatically collected into this Project Table. You can however display all tasks with the desired project name via TaskMeister's "Search" form, including those you are about to create via the Projects Table.

Look for the top-right help icon on the other steps to learn how each step works.

This is the step where you identify the PDFs to collect into this project for later assignment to tasks. In the common case that the PDFs are arranged into folders, select the root folder and its subfolders will be included.

Step 3 of the PDFs to Tasks wizard is where you have many options.

The first are the left-hand display options to expand or collapse folders or the files within those folders. This feature is designed to help you navigate among thousands of PDFs in a large project, all arranged in logical folders.

To the right of those expand/collapse buttons is the double-check icon. As its tooltip suggests, it goes down the lists of tasks and subtasks looking for overdue tasks and tasks where the hours worked have exceeded the hours authorized. It alerts you by displaying the "Hours Worked" or "Date Due" field labels with red or black backgrounds. It is also a toggle that displays or hides its info. Note that if folders and files are collapsed, this will display nothing.

On the far right is the button to hide tasks. Those are the columns from "Parent Task" to "Final QA". Hiding those leaves the count tasks from "Files" to "Links", which you can hide using the "Hide Counts" button. Those are toggle buttons so you can click the same button to hide or display their content. Do that to reduce the width of this rather wide table. You typically need to examine only one section or the other.

This is normally also a tall table, that is, with lots of PDF file rows. Note that the elevator bar to scroll up and down among table rows is found to the left of the page scroll bar at the far right.

The left-hand count section counts the files to links in a folder and/or in a file. This is useful to scope the size of the elements of a project and hopefully to match them to right-sized tasks once you're ready to do that. The right-hand tasks section show the tasks and subtasks assigned to remediate each PDF file on a row of this table. Mouse over or click the help available for each column header to understand what data each column collects.

Before using the "Assign Task" button near the top-right, make sure you have displayed the PDF files you wish to collect into task(s) and they have not already been assigned to tasks. They will have empty checkboxes below the "Totals" column header and ready for you to check.

Check the boxes for the files you wish to collect into a task. Use the counts info about the PDFs to help you decide. A 300-page monster should be assigned to its own task. A dozen similar 2-page PDFs should all be collected into one task. You also get an estimated number of hours based on all the PDF's data according to a formula that begins by assuming it will take 0.03 hours (1.8 minutes) to remediate a page without images, forms, tables, lists, or links. The formula adds time for all page components as below:
Number of Pages x 0.030 +
Number of Image Pgs x 0.200 +
Number of Form Inputs x 0.020 +
Number of Table (rows) x 0.010 +
Number of List (items) x 0.005 +
Number of Form X(Objects) x 0.100 +
Number of Links x 0.025

Use your experience to adjust those estimated hours with the up/down arrows to their right, or by simply typing your preferred number of hours to authorize.

Collect enough to make at least a 2-hr task but not more than 40 hours with an 8-hr task as average, but those guidelines vary widely for different project managers. They also vary between different analysts; newbies get smaller tasks than veterans.

Then click the "Assign Task" button to get a popup with some help text and a request for the total capacity to be assigned to this task. That capacity will be used to calculate the task's recommended due date, which you'll be able to change. If you have a 40-hr task, for example, and 3 analysts with 4 hours capacity available, that means you'll be able to knock out 12 hours per business day, so you'll need 4 business days to do the job. If today is Thursday, the due date will then be calculated as Tuesday because of the weekend.

That popup will also allow you to post a note that occurs to you at this point into the task about to be produced.

Once you click the submit button, you'll see the task you are about to propose. It'll be assigned to you, which you usually change to the main analyst you prefer to do the work, and then split off subtasks to other analysts as needed. The task description will list the PDFs that you wish remediated by this task.

Once you save the task you just produced, with whatever changes you wished, the task will appear to the right of the PDF(s) that you selected to go into the task. As you process those tasks, their info will post back to this project table that you used to collect PDFs into tasks. This will give you a handy view of the health of your project.

The last step to converting many PDFs into tasks is to produce subtasks. This is an optional step.

When you first produce a main task in the previous step, you'll notice 4 new temporary buttons along the top below the menu bar:
[OCR]   [OCR QA]   [Remed]   [QA]
Clicking these will guide you through making each of the following types of subtasks:

[OCR] - If the PDF contains pages of scanned images, those will need to be converted via optical character recognition (OCR) into text before the PDF can be remediated. This is the subtask to get that part done.

[OCR QA] - This will help you produce a subtask to check or quality assure (QA) the OCR done above.

[Remed] - This is the subtask to do the actual accessibility remediation with tagging and such.

[QA] - This is the subtask to quality assure (QA) the entire deliverable, that is, the remediated PDF.

Clicking the [OCR] button will redisplay the main project table view, but with a new "Assign OCR Subtask" button near the top.

To begin, check the unchecked checkbox under the Total label for at least one existing main task. You'll get a popup asking about the analyst's hrs/day capacity to do the OCR subtask much as you did entering the main task. You'll also get the field where you must specify the individual to do the subtask.

Follow the same procedure to produce the remaining 3 types of subtasks as needed.

The "Task Details" page displays the task you clicked on in the task list table.

Below the menu bar and to the right are the command icons for the Task Details page.

The pencil icon allows you to modify the task

The briefcase icon allows you to collect information, in this case about this task, and then paste it in various places where you see more of these icons in TaskMeister.

The trash can icon allows you to delete this task (if you have the access).

The printer icon displays a version of the task list table that is easy for any printer to print from your browser.

The lightning icon allows you to ask a quick question from one of the other users in your TaskMeister account, typically about the displayed tasks. Click it for more information about setting up and using the chat.

The task collection icon is an advanced option used to collect work you did on the task listed if you put time and comment notes in this task, for example, related to time you spent evaluating or testing the tasks. This option collects all that in a new task so you can be paid for the work you did on the task.

Note that each field name is underlined. Clicking on that brings up help for that name (what it means, how best to use it, etc).

The "Edit Task" page displays the online form you can use to modify the values of the task record you selected. By design, it resembles the task's data view so you are already familiar with the fields and their layout. Now you get to edit them.

Below the main menu bar on the left is the ID number of the task you're working on. If Bizware is giving you support, passing them that number and your problem steps will go far. On the top of the "Select" form, you can type that ID# and jump directly to the task you want.

Below the main menu bar on the right are some command icons:

The briefcase icon allows you to collect information, in this case about this task, and then paste it in various places where you see more of these icons in TaskMeister.

The task collection icon is an advanced option used to collect work you did on the task listed if you put time and comment notes in this task, for example, related to time you spent evaluating or testing the tasks. This option collects all that in a new task so you can be paid for the work you did on those other tasks. Get direction from your manager before using this advanced feature for the first time.

If you see the or icons, then you have access to the specialized application of TaskMeister for use in a prison setting. For that, see the "More Info" link to another help record.

Note that each field name is underlined. Clicking on that brings up help for that name (what it means, how best to use it, etc).

eTaskBoard and its TaskMeister module became the reason Oregon's prison authorities formed a joint venture with Bizware Online Applications to see if we could bring the internet to prison inmates, that is, to give them a job skill they could use incarcerated and when paroled to earn a seat at the nation's digital table -- all while we run a for-profit business to cover the costs of doing so.  The eTaskBoard specialty we have chosen is to help websites become accessible to the blind and the disabled. For more info on that, see the Access2online home page referenced below.

The prison allows no live internet connection between the inmates and the outside world.  The worry is that they would pass secret messages to drug dealers and various morally-challenged pals from their past.  Locked away from the inmates, I, the Coordinator, sit in an office on the other side of a big window to keep an eye on the inmates.  I have a live internet connection at my desk, and I have a live connection to the LAN that the inmates all use.  To help them do their job of auditing websites, I make copies of entire websites with tools like HTTrack and Web2Disk to the inmates' LAN.

Using eTaskBoard normally, I end up with a task assigned to one of the 7 inmates, expanding to a dozen by the end of this month.  To get the task info to the inmate, I click the iconmail.gif above a saved task to activate
https://taskmeister.bizware.com/main.php?mode=task_export_inmates&id=57000
for example for task# 57000 above.

This produces a zipped copy of the task# 57000 and its attachments with a filename X.zip where X is the task ID.  I manually copy that file into a particular inmate folder on their LAN.  For the kikis inmate for example, I copy her zipped task into a specially mapped
/adminweb4vi/eTaskBoard/kikis
folder.  Note that this HelpMeister record fails to display the conventional backslahes needed above as:
[backslash][backslash]adminweb4vi[backslash]eTaskBoard[backslash]kikis

In that folder is a push folder and a file named pass with no extension that I suspect contains her login validation info.

The inmates use the xampp application we built to log into a small, local version of TaskMeister to display and edit their task.  For more info on this xampp software application, including installation and setup instructions, see the "More Info" link below.

When the inmate changes their task Status to "Developed", the xampp TaskMeister zips that task's info into an X.zip where X is the task ID and moves it into a
/adminweb4vi/eTaskBoard/completed
folder.

Once we have such completed tasks, I go to the top of my TaskMeister task table and click an icon-unzip.gif icon to activate
https://taskmeister.bizware.com/main.php?mode=list#
which brings me to the
/adminweb4vi/eTaskBoard/completed
folder where a popup allows me to select all the tasks the inmates put there with xampp.  This mode=list# ends by displaying a regular task table in my TaskMeister, but with the tasks I just unzipped and imported from all the zip files I selected.  I have to remember to delete all the zipped files from
/adminweb4vi/eTaskBoard/completed
that I just imported into my TaskMeister.  I may be the only TaskMeister user to see these zip/unzip command icons.

To add an inmate to the TaskMeister for Inmates app using xampp, simply add their username as a folder name among the rest and then copy a zipped task with them as the Assigned-To into that folder.  When they first log in, the app will produce from the task a pass file (no extension) which is their encrypted password. Such password info is packaged into the task data when it is first zipped from the regular TaskMeister.

Note that using the above rule, a corrupted pass file is easy to fix by simply deleting it and posting a new task to the inmate user. On their first log in, the app will produce a replacement pass file.

The briefcase feature is a way to carry data or information between forms and even applications. Consider it an expansion of the Windows clip-and-paste feature which can carry only one piece of information to clip-and-paste.

If you see the briefcase icon next to some data or information, clicking on it adds that data to your briefcase. Each user has their own briefcase. Often, more than one piece of data is put into the briefcase with that one click, for example, a task name and the link to it. A popup confirms that the data has been put into your briefcase, with an "Admin" button if you want to see what's in your briefcase.

If you see the same briefcase icon where you can enter data, for example, to add references (Refs) on a task edit form, clicking on it displays what is displayed with the "Admin" button, a table showing the tool or application from where the data row was picked up, the name of the data, the type of data picked up, and these three command icons:

The paste-and-remove icon puts the data where you can enter data, often entering more than one field at a time, and then removes the data item from the briefcase.
 

The simple paste icon also puts the data where you can enter data, often entering more than one field at a time, but then doesn't remove the data item (row) from the briefcase so you can paste it again.
 

The trash can icon removes the data item (row) from your briefcase without pasting it anywhere. Note that nothing removed from the briefcase is deleted from where the briefcase originally received it.
 

The "Outside Link" button at the bottom allows you to add the name and URL of a web page outside the tools and applications where you can gather data by clicking briefcase icons. Afterward, you can paste such data from your briefcase like any other data.

The "Clear Briefcase" button at the bottom removes all data items (rows) from your briefcase, the same as if you clicked each data's trash can icon.

The "Close" button closes the briefcase, saving everything in the state displayed for later, the same as clicking the X at the top-right of the popup.

Selecting task templates within TaskMeister allows you to put just the templates that interest you in the template list table, and to work on them from there. By design it resembles the same selection command for tasks so you can guess how it works from that experience.

Most selection conditions are based on picklists. This allows you to view templates related to certain organizational departments or projects, to the default status (proposed, authorized to do, etc.), to the default priority (high or low), or to custom template types you define. You can also type free form text, for example, "password bug" if that is all you can recall about a template, and TaskMeister will show you all the templates that contain "password bug" in their name, description or notes.

You can also save a selection condition, and then reuse it over and over.

Finally, clicking on the Reselect button will redisplay a list of templates based on your selections. If the list is empty, go back and widen the search criteria. Selecting "Any" in a picklist that currently has a value in it is a quick way to widen your search.

Each of these search options have more help detailing them. Just click on their names on the Select page.

A task template allows you to reuse information for a repetitive task.

If you need someone to prepare your budget every once in a while, for example, you no longer need to write a new task each time. You can write a "Prepare Budget" template instead and produce a task from it whenever you wish. Over time, you can edit that template, correcting for implementation misunderstandings and adding details, until that template becomes a great set of instructions to produce exactly the budget you wish.

The menu bar commands (starting with "Select") shows 4 sub-menu command buttons under the "Templates" button you clicked:

Select - Change your selection criteria of which templates to display in case you have many templates. Tip: if you move your cursor over the command, a pop-up display shows your current selection conditions.

Template List - Displays the "Task Template List" page, which lists all templates and is the main entry page into TaskMeister's template feature and its commands.

New Template - Use this form to add new templates.

Preferences - Use this to change the default Saved Selection and Picklists used to create and view Templates.

Note that each of the above sub-menu commands displays a form with its own help. Many of these template management commands are similar to TaskMeister's task management commands so you can guess their operation from having managed tasks.

Below the sub-menu bar and to the right are the command icons for the Task Template List page. They act on all the templates with their left-hand checkboxes checked on the Task Template List, which in turn may have been reduced by the Select command:

The red T copy icon copies the selected template(s) to tasks.

The blank page copy icon creates a copy of the selected template(s).

The T-box icon exports the template information in the table into an ASCII text file that can be imported into several software applications.

The W-box icon exports the task information in the table into an MS Word document that can be read into most word processors.

The X-box icon exports the task information in the table into a CSV spreadsheet format usable by MS Excel and others.

The printer icon displays a version of the template list table that is easy for any printer to print from your browser.

In the table below the above icons, you can use the up-down arrows to the left of each column header name to sort that column either ascending (up arrow) or descending (down arrow). To remind you what is currently sorted, the last sort direction you chose will make that up or down arrow red.

Note that clicking on a column header name brings up help for that name (what it means, how best to use it, etc).

If you move your cursor over the name of a task, you'll see a short summary of the task description. If you click on its name, you'll see all the task details.