actiTIME User Guide

Task Management

• Browse open tasks
  
• Edit task deadline when browsing open tasks
  
• Edit task description when browsing open tasks
  
• Add new tasks
  
• View open task
  
• Add and edit comments for an open task
  
• Edit open task
  
• Complete tasks
  
• Browse completed tasks
  
• View completed task
  
• Edit completed task
  
• Re-open tasks
  
• Delete task
  

When you click 'Projects & Tasks' option in the top-level menu, the system shows the Open Tasks interface showing all tasks that are currently open. To get to this interface from the customer and project management pages, select the 'Open Tasks' option in the second-level menu.

If you want to browse open tasks that are associated with specific customers and/or projects, select the corresponding customers and projects in the customer and project selector:

• Select check box near a customer name to get all open tasks of all active projects of this customer
  When you select a customer all its project are automatically selected. When you de-select a customer, selection is cleared from all customer projects as well.

• Select check box near a project name to get all tasks that are currently open for the selected project.
  To select all customer projects but one, select the corresponding customer and then de-select the project you do not want to see.

In addition to filtering tasks by customers and projects, you can filter tasks by words contained in their names.

To filter tasks by words contained in task names enter the first letters of these words in the 'Tasks Filter' field. For example, you may enter 'des' to find tasks containing word 'design' in their names.

Note that in this case task list will also contain tasks with words 'destination', 'description', 'desired', etc. To narrow the search results enter more letters of the words to find.

You can specify more than one keyword in the 'Tasks Filter' field. In this case the system will show the tasks which names contain all the specified words.

After you configured the filter, click the 'Show Tasks' button to apply it.

The Open Tasks interface provides you with brief description of open tasks.

For each of the tasks shown this information includes:

• Customer the task is associated with
• Project the task is associated with
• Task name
• Task description icon
• Task deadline
• Date of the last time-track submission
• Total time spent on the task
• Option for completion or deletion of the task

Total time spent on the task as well as date of the last time-track submission may be hidden in the interface if you have neither "Manage Customers, Products & Tasks" nor "Enter/Modify Time-Track of Other Users" access rights. See the Adjust general system settings section for more information.

Note that only the tasks that have some time-track reported can be completed; as well as only the tasks that have no time-track reported can be deleted.

Task names, deadlines, and description icons are clickable:

• Clicking a task name opens the View Open Task interface.
• Clicking a deadline opens a pop-up window for editing the deadline.
• Clicking a task description icon opens a pop-up window for editing the corresponding task's description.

If a deadline date is in the past, it is shown in red color.

When there are more than 20 open tasks to show, a pager appears. You can switch pages by clicking the links under the task list. To change the number of tasks simultaneously shown on one page select the corresponding option in the 'Show XX tasks on a page' drop-down under the task list.

For information on how to complete selected tasks see section Complete tasks.

Edit task deadline when browsing open tasks

You can edit task deadlines directly in the list of open tasks. For information on how to get to the Open Tasks interface see the section Browse open tasks.

To edit a task's deadline follow the instructions below:

1. Click a deadline you want to edit. This will open a pop-up window for editing the deadline:
   
   Pop-up window for editing deadline

2. Enter (or edit) the deadline.
   The system accepts a variety of date formats. For example: "Mon DD, YY", "Month DD, YYYY", "MM/DD/YY", etc. So you can enter deadline using almost any date format you like.
   You can select a deadline in the pop-up calendar. To open the calendar click the icon located next to the deadline input field. Then click a date in the calendar.

3. Click the 'OK' button to save the entered deadline.

   This will save modifications in the system and update task's deadline in the list of open tasks.

If you decided not to modify the selected deadline, click the 'Cancel' button. The system will discard the modifications and close the pop-up window.

Edit task description when browsing open tasks

You can edit task descriptions directly in the list of open tasks. For information on how to get to the Open Tasks interface see the section Browse open tasks.

To edit a task's description follow the instructions below:

1. Click the description icon shown next to the name of the corresponding task. This will open a pop-up window for editing the description:
   
   Pop-up window for editing description

2. Enter (or edit) the description.

   Size of task description shall be less than 2000 characters.

3. Click the 'OK' button to save the entered description.

If you decided not to modify the selected description, click the 'Cancel' button. The system will discard the modifications and close the pop-up window.

Add new tasks

To add new tasks follow the instructions below:

1. Open the Add New Tasks interface.

   There are several interfaces from where you can get to the Add New Tasks interface:

   • The Open Tasks interface

     Click the 'Add New Task' button to open the Add New Tasks interface.

     The project and/or customer selected in the Open Tasks interface before the click will be automatically pre-selected in the Add New Task interface.

     For information on how to get to the Open Tasks interface see section Browse open tasks.

   • The Active Projects & Customers interface

     Select a project you want to add new tasks for and click the 'add tasks' link next to the project's name.

     For information on how to get to the Active Projects & Customers interface see section Browse active projects & customers.

   
   Add New Tasks interface

2. Select a customer to add new tasks for (if necessary).

   In most cases customer will be pre-selected automatically. However, you can change it if you need. Note that only active customers are available for selection.

   When you select a customer, the system refreshes the list of projects to the active projects of the selected customer.
   To create a new customer select the '-- new customer --' option in the 'Customer' drop-down and enter a name of the customer to create.
   
   Add New Tasks page when the '-- new customer --' option is selected

3. Select a project to add new tasks for (if necessary).

   In most cases project will be pre-selected automatically. However, you can change it if you need. Note that only active projects of the selected customer are available for selection.

   To create a new project select the '-- new project --' option in the 'Project' drop-down and enter a name of the project to create.
   
   Add New Tasks page when the '-- new project --' option is selected
   If you selected to create a new customer on the previous step, you will be required to specify a name of a new project to add tasks for.

4. Enter information for the tasks to create.

   You can simultaneously create as many tasks as you need. If the 'Fill In Tasks' table contains not enough rows, use links under the table to add more rows to it.

   Information that can be specified for a new task:

   • Task name

     Task name shall be unique among the tasks registered in the selected project. The check for uniqueness is case-insensitive. So task names 'User Management Interfaces' and 'user management interfaces' will be considered as the same.

   • Deadline

     Task's deadline is shown in the Enter Time-Track interface. Fill in deadline, if you want to inform task executors about it via actiTIME interfaces.

     The system accepts a variety of date formats. For example: "Mon DD, YY", "Month DD, YYYY", "MM/DD/YY", etc. So you can enter deadline using almost any date format you like.
     You can select a deadline in the pop-up calendar. To open the calendar click the icon located next to the corresponding deadline field. Then click a date in the calendar.
     
     Pop-up calendar

   • Billing type

     Select one of the registered billing types or Non-Billable for non-billable tasks.

     By default billing type for all new tasks is pre-set to the default billing type configured for the system (see section Billing type management for information on how to set the default billing type).

   • Description

     To enter a description for a task click an icon located next to the task name. This will open a pop-up window for entering description:

     
     Pop-up window for entering description

     Enter a description and click the 'OK' button. Size of task description shall be less than 2000 characters.

     If you decided not to add a description click the 'Cancel' button.

   Note that if you specified a deadline and/or description for a task, you will be required to enter a task name as well.

   Instead of entering tasks information manually you can copy it form an existing project.

   To do that click the 'Fill in with Tasks Information from Another Project' link located over the tasks table. This will open the Copy Tasks From a Project pop-up window:

   
   Pop-up window for selection of a project to copy tasks information from

   Select a project to copy tasks information from and then click the 'Copy Tasks' button. This will copy tasks information from the selected project and add it to list of tasks to create.

5. When you are ready, submit the page by clicking the 'Create Tasks' button at the bottom of the interface. The system will register the new tasks with the specified parameters and show you the Open Tasks interface.
   Note that once created, a task cannot be moved to another project or to another customer. See section Delete task for information on how to delete erroneously added tasks.

If you decided not to add new tasks, click the 'Cancel' button at the bottom of the page. The system will discard all the information entered in the interface and show you the interface from where you got to the Add New Tasks interface.

View open task

For information on how to get to the Open Tasks interface see section Browse open tasks.

The interface shows general task information as well as all time and comments reported for the task.

Add and edit comments for an open task

In the View Open Task interface you can add comments to your time-track reports and edit existing task comments made by you. For information on how to get to the View Open Task interface see section View open task.

Process of adding task comments and process of editing task comments are very similar. To add / edit task comments follow the instructions below:

1. Open the View Open Task interface

2. To enter comments for an existing time report click either the 'enter comment' or 'edit your comment' link (if some comment already exists) in the corresponding time report's row.

   If you need to add a comment to the selected task, but you did not report any time-track for this task, click the 'Enter Comment for Today' link located over the table with time-track and comments.

   You will get a pop-up window for editing task comments:

   
   Pop-up window for editing comments

3. Enter (or edit) the comment.

4. Click the 'OK' button to save the entered comment.

   This will save modifications in the system and update the View Open Task interface.

If you decided not to modify/enter task comments, click the 'Cancel' button. The system will discard the modifications and close the pop-up window.

Edit open task

To edit an open task follow the instructions below:

1. Open the interface 'View Open Task' for the corresponding task (see section View open task).

2. Click the 'Edit Task Parameters' link to get to the Edit Open Task interface.
   
   Edit Open Task interface

3. Modify task information. All fields marked with a red asterisk are mandatory.

   Information that can be modified for an open task includes:

   • Task name

     Task name shall be unique among the tasks registered in the selected project. The check for uniqueness is case-insensitive. So task names 'User Management Interfaces' and 'user management interfaces' will be considered as the same.

   • Deadline

     Task's deadline is shown in the Enter Time-Track interface. Fill in the deadline, if you want to inform task executors about it via actiTIME interfaces.

   • Billing type

     Select one of the registered billing types or Non-Billable for non-billable tasks.

   • Description

4. Select an interface you want to switch to after editing the task.

   To edit information of other open tasks select option 'Show list of open tasks', otherwise select option 'Return to the view open task page'.

5. Submit the modifications by clicking the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom of the page. The system will store the modifications made in the interface and show you either the View Open Task interface or the Open Tasks interface (depending on the selection made on the previous step).

Click 'Cancel' button at the bottom of the page, if you decided not to edit the selected task. The system will reject all the modifications of task information and show you the View Open Task interface.

Complete tasks

To complete one or several tasks follow the instructions below:

1. Go to the Open Tasks interface (see section Browse open tasks for information on how to get to this page).

2. Select tasks to complete. To do that set the corresponding checkboxes in the rightmost table column.

   If you want to select all the open tasks shown on the page, click the 'All' link in the header of the 'Select Tasks to Complete' column.

   If you want to unselect all selected tasks, click the 'None' link in the header of the 'Select Tasks to Complete' column.

   Note that only tasks that have some time-track reported can be completed. If you need to remove a task without any time-track reported from the list of open tasks, just delete this task (see section Delete task).

3. Choose the date that should be used as the completion date for the selected tasks

   There are two options available here:

   • You can complete each of the tasks using the date of the last time-track reported for the task. In this case each tasks will be completed on the date when actual work on the task was finished. Each task will have its own completion date.

     To use this option, select 'Last time-track date' radio button at the bottom of the page.

   • You can complete all selected tasks using the same completion date. In this case all the selected tasks will be completed on the same date. This date may be after, equal, or even before the date of the last time-track reported for each of the tasks.

     To use this option, specify a date and select the corresponding radio button at the bottom of the page.

   Choose that option of task completion, which better fits your accounting procedure.

4. Click 'Complete Selected Tasks' at the bottom of the page. The system will complete the selected tasks and show you the Open Tasks interface.

Tasks that were completed can be browsed on the Completed Tasks interface (see section Browse completed tasks for information on how to get to this page).

Browse completed tasks

Select the option 'Completed Tasks' in the top-level menu 'Projects & Tasks' to open the Completed Tasks interface.

By default the interface is configured to show all completed tasks for all active customers and projects.

To browse all completed tasks registered in actiTIME select the 'All projects of all customers (active and archived)' option in the top part of the interface.

If you want to browse completed tasks that are associated with particular customers and/or projects, select the corresponding customers and projects in the customer and project selector:

• Select check box near a customer name to get all completed tasks of this customer projects
  When you select a customer all its project are automatically selected. When you de-select a customer, selection is cleared from all customer projects as well.

• Select check box near a project name to get all completed tasks of this project.
  To select all customer projects but one, select the corresponding customer and then de-select the project you do not want to see.

• To see archived customers and projects in the customers and projects selector, set the 'Show archived customers and projects...' check box above the list of customers and projects.
  If you select a customer when option 'Show archived customers and projects...' is not selected, tasks of the archived projects of this customer will not be shown.

In addition to filtering tasks by customers and projects, you can:

• filter tasks by words contained in their names:

  To filter tasks by words contained in the task names enter the first letters of these words in the 'Tasks Filter' field. For example, you may enter 'des' to find tasks containing word 'design' in their names.

  Note that in this case task list will also contain tasks with words 'destination', 'description', 'desired', etc. To narrow the search results enter more letters of the words to find.

  You can specify more than one keyword in the 'Tasks Filter' field. In this case the system will show the tasks which names contain all the specified words.

• filter tasks by their completion date:
  • Specify the 'from date' and the 'to date' if you want to browse tasks that were completed within the specified date range

  • Specify only the 'from date' if you want to browse tasks that were completed on the specified date and later

  • Specify only the 'to date' if you want to browse tasks that were completed on the specified date and before it

  • If you do not want to filter tasks by their completion dates, leave both 'from' and 'to' dates unspecified

The Completed Tasks interface provides you with brief description of completed tasks.

For each of the tasks shown this information includes:

• Customer the task is associated with
• Project the task is associated with
• Task name
• Task description icon (for those tasks which have a description)
• Task deadline
• Completion date
• Total time spent on the task
• Option for re-opening the task

Total time spent on the task may be hidden in the interface if you have neither "Manage Customers, Products & Tasks" nor "Enter/Modify Time-Track of Other Users" access rights. See the Adjust general system settings section for more information.

Task names and description icons are clickable:

• Clicking a task name opens the Edit Completed Task interface.
• Clicking a task description icon opens a pop-up window for viewing the corresponding task's description.

When there are more than 20 completed tasks to show, a pager appears. You can switch pages by clicking the links under the task list. To change the number of tasks simultaneously shown on one page select the corresponding option in the 'Show XX tasks on a page' drop-down under the task list.

For information on how to re-open selected tasks see section Re-open tasks.

View completed task

Click a task name on the Completed Tasks interface. The system will show the View Completed Task interface.

For information on how to get to the Completed Tasks interface see section Browse completed tasks.

The interface shows general task information as well as all time and comments reported for the task.

Edit completed task

To edit a completed task follow the instructions below:

1. Open the interface 'View Completed Task' for the corresponding task (see section View completed task).

2. Click the 'Edit Task Parameters' link to get to the Edit Completed Task interface.
   
   Edit Completed Task interface

3. Modify task information. All fields marked with a red asterisk are mandatory.

   Information that can be modified for a completed task includes:

   • Completion date

     Specify a completion date that is most suitable for your accounting procedure.

     The system accepts a variety of date formats. For example: "Mon DD, YY", "Month DD, YYYY", "MM/DD/YY", etc. So you can enter completion date as well as deadline using almost any date format you like.

   • Task name

     Task name shall be unique among the tasks registered in the selected project. The check for uniqueness is case-insensitive. So task names 'User Management Interfaces' and 'user management interfaces' will be considered as the same.

   • Deadline

   • Billing type

     Select one of the registered billing types or Non-Billable for non-billable tasks.

   • Description

4. Select an interface you want to switch to after editing the task.

   To edit information of other completed tasks select option 'Show list of completed tasks', otherwise select option 'Return to the view completed task page'.

5. Submit the modifications by clicking the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom of the page. The system will store the modifications made in the interface and show you either the View Completed Task interface or the Completed Tasks interface (depending on the selection made on the previous step).

If you decided not to edit the selected task, click the 'Cancel' button at the bottom of the page. The system will reject all the modifications of task information and show you the View Completed Task interface.

Re-open tasks

To re-open one or several tasks follow the instructions below:

1. Go to the Completed Tasks interface (see section Browse completed tasks for information on how to get to this page).

2. Select tasks to re-open. To do that set the corresponding checkboxes in the rightmost table column.

   If you want to select all completed tasks shown on the page, click the 'All' link in the header of the 'Select Tasks to Re-open' column.

   If you want to unselect all selected tasks, click the 'None' link in the header of the 'Select Tasks to Re-open' column.

3. Click 'Re-open Selected Tasks' at the bottom of the page. The system will re-open the selected tasks and show you the Completed Tasks interface.
   If you are re-opening tasks from an archived project, this project will be automatically restored from the archives.

Tasks that were re-opened can be browsed on the Open Tasks interface (see section Browse open tasks for information on how to get to this page).

Delete task

There are two ways to delete a task:

• Click the appropriate 'delete task' link on the Open Tasks interface (see section Browse open tasks for information on how to get to this page).

• Click the 'Delete This Task' button on either the View Open Task interface or the Edit Open Task interface (see sections View open task and Edit open task for information on how to get to these pages).

In both cases you will be asked to confirm the task deletion. If you confirm it, the system will delete the selected task and show you the Open Tasks interface.