Re: Re: Tasks, Milestones, and Projects

> Chris H wrote:
>
http://www.lotus.com/products/product3.nsf/wdocs/ltwhome
> >
> > What is of interest is the 'task' creation
> process. The user is 
> > presented with an optional field "is milestone"
> which is really cool. 
> > Here the user can assign a task as either an
> independent task or as a 
> > 'milestone' in a series of tasks. To add this
> needed feature IMHO 
> > would not be to difficult in OGo from what I have
> read. What would be 
> > really cool is to have a clean method to attach
> such 'milestone' tasks 
> > to a specified project.

This may relate to an existing enhancement request:
http://bugzilla.opengroupware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1089

The way I see it, it could operate much like Request
Tracker's 3.x dependancies, where there are fields
for:
Depends on:  	
Depended on by: 	
Parents: 	
Children: 	
Refers to: 	
Referred to by: 	

Obviously, it would need to be simplified or otherwise
made to fit into OGo's structure.  Most project
management applications have a concept of
blocking/non-blocking which relates to RT's "depends"
functions, where they must be accomplished in order of
dependencies.  RT's Parent/Child fields simply show
where a particular task fits in the task hierarchy. 
Referrals are simply stuff that is seperate, yet
relates to the current task.

If you wanted to have a simplified, abstracted set of
fields/links, it could be reduced to four fields:

Parent (id number of parent task)
Parent_Relationship (Parent, Depended on by, referred
to by)
Child (id number of child task)
Child_Relationship (Child, depends on, refers to)

Maybe it could be simplified further, but I'm not a db
expert.  Blank fields would indicate a "standalone"
task.  This kind of functionality would enable OGo to
function as a "Lite" project manager, perfect for
those folks who don't need a full blown PM
application.  It would also enable mobile users (Palm
Users) to have their tasks on their mobile devices,
and yet still have synchronization with the OGo
"project" tasks.


> > The option to include the task in the calendar is
> non interesting from 
> > this end due to clutter it can create. Personally
> I like to have these 
> > items not in the calendar unless the calendar is
> specific to 
> > tasks/projects time lines...now that would be
> cool..:)

I have to disagree with you here.  I instruct some of
my clients in time management, and one of the things I
tell them is that important, time sensitive tasks
**must** go on the calendar, and that the calendar is
sacred.  I think that having this option (check box:
Include in calendar view) is essential.  It can create
a link to an event, whereby time for this task can be
scheduled.  It also allows others to know that they
are busy (group calendaring), and leave them alone
(thereby actually accomplishing said task!)

My $0.02 worth (before taxes!).

/Mike

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