Using The Tasks Index Window
The Tasks Index Window displays all of the Task records in a project.
The window's primary job is to help you locate and select record(s) so
you can perform database tasks on them.
The only way to open this window is to click on the Tasks Index
hyperlink found at the top of almost
every window in the software.
This help page is not going to cover every feature offered by the Tasks Index Window, because many of
them are already covered in detail by other help pages.
Record Entry Cards Display Important Information About Each Task Record
Information about a Task record is displayed in a Record Entry Card in the center of the window.
You'll
find that there's more than enough information in these cards to identify a task you're searching
for,
as well as provide searchable content to match keyword searches being done on the window's records
list.
Double Click On A Record Entry Card To Display Its Task Record In Its
Editing Window
If you double click anywhere on a Record Entry Card a new Task Window will be displayed and it'll
contain
the Task record the Record Entry Card represents.
This image shows a Task Window displaying the
Task record for the Record Entry Card above.
Displaying The Selected Record's List Of Linked Computer Files
On the left hand side of the window is a long list of the hyperlinks that can perform database tasks,
such as displaying all the computer
files linked to a task.
Many of them need you to single click on a Record Entry Card first, to select
it, before you click on the hyperlink to
do something with that record.
By single clicking on a Record Entry Card, the window knows which Task
record you want to do something with, or to.
For example, the image below shows a selected Record Entry Card.
To see all the computer files linked to
that record, you'd click on the Display Data File Links hyperlink.
After that link is clicked, the Task's Data File Links Index Window is displayed, and it's showing
Record
Entry Cards for each computer file
that's linked to the Task record.
Understanding the Current Task Statistics Panel
The Current Task Statistics Panel is used to give you an approximation of how fast you
are
able to complete tasks, and some scenarios for
how long it might take to complete the project's remaining unfinished work sessions.
Understanding The Task Completion Rate
When any Task record is created, it's automatically assigned an estimated completion time of 1 hour.
You
can change the size of the estimate
at any time by selecting a new estimate from the Task Size combo box in the Task Window.
If you look at the Task record in this image you'll see that it has a Task Size of 'Under Two
Months'.
If you
look at the Time Worked value, you'll see that there has been 153 hours, 38 minutes, and 12 seconds,
worked on this task so far, and more to come, because the Task is still marked as 'Unfinished'.
To compute the Task Completion Rate, the software adds up all the time worked on every task in the
project, and the divides that sum, by the sum of the size estimates for all the tasks in the project.
The formula below shows the calculation.
Time Worked On All Tasks / Task Size Of All Tasks = Task Completion Rate.
At a Task Completion Rate of 60.36 %, this means that if you estimate a task will take 1 hour to
complete, and if nothing goes wrong,
then you're likely going to finish that task in a little over 36 minutes.
The calculation is: 60 min *
(60.36/100) = 36.216 min
Understanding The 'Estimated Time To Complete All Unfinished Tasks'
Section Of The Current Task Statistics Panel
You know as well as I do, that it's impossible to complete everything you do, every day, without
anything
ever going wrong.
In fact, it's impossible to live life, let alone develop anything, without
something causing problems and delays, in your otherwise perfect world.
This table of statistics in the Current Task Statistics Panel takes into account that
life's not perfect, and that at some point in time, a percentage of the project's unfinished work,
is
going to have unexpected problems, that cause delays, to their task's estimated completion times.
What this table of statistics is trying to do, is to
provide an estimate of how long it might take to finish the project's current set of unfinished work
sessions, assuming that you can keep working at your current task completion rate.
Each table row assumes a set percentage of problems are happening during the work sessions, and gives
an
estimated time to to complete all unfinished work sessions.
The Delay Factor column in the
table represents the percentage of things going wrong when you're working on those unfinished work
sessions.
The first and last rows in the table, represent boundary conditions, that are highly unlikely
to
consistently happen when you work on all of the project's remaining unfinished work sessions.
The first
row represents the perfect case, where nothing goes wrong, during any of these work sessions.
The last
row represents a nightmare scenario, where half of everything you do is going wrong in every work
session.
These two rows are "unrealistically idealistic" on purpose.
While both of these rows represent conditions that won't happen all of the time, they do happen
enough of the time, during some work sessions, to make their estimates realistic, and a good
set
of starting and ending boundaries for the table.
The middle row, is the more realistic time estimate, but it's biased towards a higher blend of
unexpected
problems occurring and
not away from them.
Most of the time, you'll find that this is a good approximation of what actually
happened when you completed a batch of
work sessions.