Creating a New Task

Figure 5.2. Creating a new Task

Creating a new Task

Via the create icon you can add additional tasks. The following fields need to be completed:

Standard Information

Subject

Under Subject you simply enter the title under which the task should be saved. Subject is a required field without which a task cannot be created.

Start Date

Here you enter the date when the task should be worked on. The date format is DD.MM.YYYY. They can also select the date with help of the built-in calendar. For this, click on the calendar icon to the right of the input field. A new calendar view opens. Simply click on the desired date, the calendar closes and the selected date appears in the text field. The default for the start date is always the today's date. The system also automatically checks upon creation of a project task whether the start date falls within the project time frame. Start date is a required field. If you cannot fill in this field, the appointment cannot be created or changed.

Required fields

All required fields must be filled in before you can select another tab.

End Date

Here you enter the date by when the task should be completed. The date format is DD.MM.YYYY. They can also select the date with help of the built-in calendar. For this, click on the calendar icon to the right of the input field. A small calendar view opens. Simply click on the desired date, the calendar closes and the selected date appears in the text field. The system also automatically checks upon creation of a project task whether the end date falls within the project time frame. End date is a required field. If you cannot fill in this field, the appointment cannot be created or changed.

Description

Please enter a precise description of the task.

Priority

At this point you assign a priority to the task. Here you can choose between low, normal and high. The default is low.

Status

Here you enter which status the task has at the moment. Normally you can choose between three different status options that correspond to the completion in percent:

Not started (0%)
In progress (25%)
Done (100%)

In addition, a task can be deferred or wait for someone else.

When you create a new task, the setting Not started is the default status.

Reminder by Email

If you want to be reminded of a task by email, you can enter here when you would like to be reminded. Depending on the value, you will receive the reminder by email between1 day and 4 weeks before the end date.

Notify Participants

If you would like that the other participants of this task are also reminded, please check the checkbox notify participants.

Categories

A special input field is the Categories button. With this button you can place the task in a specific task category. If you click the button, a popup window appears where you can select between different predefined task categories. Select the appropriate checkbox following the desired category and click the button Add selected Categories. You set up a personal category by entering it by hand in the text field. With the button Save categories list you add it permanently. In order to delete individual categories you select the checkbox in front of the category and click the button Delete Selected Categories.

Task Details

Via the Details tab you can add additional details to a task. The following additional fields are available:

Assignment

Here you indicate whether this task is a general task, or whether it belongs to a project. If it belongs to a project, please select the project in the pull-down menu. Otherwise please select Global task. If the task is a project task, the system checks whether the start date falls within the project time frame.

Currency

Here you specify which currency should be used for the estimated costs and is-costs. Which currencies are available to you here depends on the list of currencies made available by the system administrator during the configuration of Open-Xchange Server.

Overall Duration

Specify here the estimated duration of the task in hours or days. To change the unit of measurement, please use the pull-down menu on the right of the text field.

Overall Duration

This value can only be changed by participants who have Write- access.

Is-Duration

Specify here the actual duration of the task in hours or days. The unit is the same as for the overall duration. On the overview page you can see the difference between estimated duration and is-duration and recognize immediately whether you are on schedule. In the Projects section the is-values of all project-specific tasks are added up to provide a summary overview.

Overall Costs

Enter here the estimated costs of the task in the currency that you have selected before.

Is-Costs

Enter here the actual costs of the task in the currency that you have selected before. On the overview page you can see the difference between estimated costs and is-costs and recognize immediately whether you are on budget. In the Projects section the is-values of all project-specific tasks are added up to provide a summary overview.

Additional Information

The text fields Distance, Billing information and Companies allow you to add further information to the new task.

Participants

Via the tabs you reach other entry forms where you add the participants for this task.

Selecting participants

Assigning participants to a task works similar to assigning object permissions as already discussed in Defining object-specific rights. It is generally the case that all participants of a task have read and write access. Public and released folders are exceptions. All system users of the groupware have access to public task folders. For released folders, the object rights depend on the rights set for the folder. You find further details in chapter 15 Folder management.

Assigning Read and Write Access

Manual configuration of the read and write permissions is not necessary during the creation of a task. A new task has the same permissions as the folder in which it is saved. You find a detailed discussion of this topic in the "Folder Management" chapter.

Sequence

If this is a periodically recurring task, you can specify this via the sequence tab. Here you have several options for specifying the recurrence period of the task:

No Sequence

If the repetition period has this setting, an individual task is created without repetition. This is the default setting for tasks.

Daily

If you select this as the repetition period, the task is repeated periodically after the given days. If the task sequence is going to be edited later, please note that this option cannot be changed any more. Changing to weekly or monthly is not possible.

Weekly

With a weekly repetition period, you can add tasks that should recur in weekly intervals. For example, if you have set the repetition period to be 3 weeks, the task is added to the calendar every 21 days. You can also specify on which weekdays the task should be repeated. For this you simply click the appropriate flag for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, depending on which weekday the task should be repeated on. If the task sequence is going to be edited later, please note that this option cannot be changed any more. Changing to daily or monthly is not possible.

Monthly

If this task occurs periodically on a specific day in intervals of a certain number of months, you select this option. In the left text field you enter the day of the month on which the task takes place and in the right one how many months should pass between a task and the next of the task sequence. If the task sequence is going to be edited later, please note that this option cannot be changed any more. Changing to daily or weekly is not possible.

Yearly

Yearly recurring tasks can also be set up via the sequence configuration. For this simply set the date of the recurring task under yearly.

The Sequence ends on

If you have decided on a repetition period, you can specify here up to which date the task should be repeated. You can enter the date directly (in day.month.year format) or click on the icon to select the date via a mouse click on the integrated calendar.

To save the entries, click on the Save-button. To reject them, please click on the Cancel-button.