Creating Composite Tasks

Use the calendar to create tasks for yourself or assign them to other people. Optionally, add reviewers to approve or reject the work of the assignees.

Context

You can create a composite task to collect data in your planning process, or use it for any other workflow you'd like to manage in the calendar. Composite tasks help you to monitor progress on a project. They can be for you alone or you can assign them to one or more colleagues. If multiple assignees work on the task, only one of them needs to submit the task to accomplish it.

If you'd like to have the assignees' work checked over, you can add one or more reviewers to the task. You can assign different reviewers in successive review rounds: when one reviewer in a round signs off on a task, the next round of reviewers is notified.

If multiple reviewers work on the task, the review is accomplished when one of the reviewers accepts the result of the task.
If multiple reviewers work in a review round, the review round is accomplished when one of the reviewers of this review round accepts the result of the task.

You can decide how to distribute the time between assignees and reviewers.

Task owners or assignees can add work files to a task: These can be stories, analytic applications or URLs. The assignees enter data directly in the story or analytic application and submit their task from there. As soon as one of the assignees has submitted their work, the reviewers can start working on the files.

Need to schedule something on a recurring basis? You can set up recurrence for a task, and change individual occurrences as needed.

Procedure

From (Main Menu), select Calendar.
Choose (Add new) Composite Task.
Provide a Name.
Set the Start and Due dates and times.

Optional: Select Add Recurrence and then fill in the settings.

Option	Description
Recurrence Pattern	Set the task to repeat every Hour, Day, or Week.
Every	Set the recurrence frequency. For tasks that occur every week, pick a specific weekday.
Start Date of First Occurrence	Set the start date and time for the first occurrence.
Due Date of First Occurrence	Set the due date and time for the first occurrence.
End Recurrence by	Set when the recurrence pattern ends: End Date: fill in the end date details. Repetitions: set the number of repetitions; this includes the first occurrence. No End

Optional: Choose Assign to me if you want to assign the task to yourself.
Optional: If you want the task to start automatically on the selected start date, choose Activate the task at start date automatically.

You can choose this option only after assigning the task to yourself. If you want to assign the task to someone else, you can select this option later in the Details panel.
Select OK.

The task is added to the calendar and opened in the Details panel.

If you created a recurring task, the Details panel will open with the Series tab selected instead of the Task tab.
In the title area, you can select a different style for the task or create a new style.
Add work files (stories or analytic applications) to the task, or provide a URL.
- As the owner, you upload a work file or add a URL.
  
  You can add a URL by selecting Add URL from the dropdown menu.
  
  The assignees can edit the work file, and they can also add more work files.
- As the owner, you don't provide a work file or a URL.
  
  The assignees upload their own files to Work Files. While they are working on the task, only the assignees can see each other’s work files. As soon as one of the assignees submits their work, the reviewers can start working on the files. When the reviewers have submitted their work, everyone involved can see the finished work files.
Configure the Completion Settings for your task.
1. In the Time area, select Advanced Settings.
2. Decide whether to turn on Discontinue the task on the due date automatically.
3. Decide what to do with the information that has been gathered if the task is still Open or In Progress:
  - Change status to Canceled: No information will be saved.
  - Change status to Accomplished: All submitted files and data will be approved and stored.
4. Click Close to close the Completion Settings panel.
Your choices are now listed in the Time area.
Choose how you want to distribute the time spent on your task by the assignees and the reviewers. To do so, drag the handle along the Distribution slider to set the time distribution in percentage.

By default, the distribution of the time is set at 75% for the assignees and 25% for the reviewers. A token below the slider shows the resulting start and due dates for each user role.

According to these time settings, people will receive reminders and notifications if their work is overdue.

Note

The actual start date of the review depends on the status of the assignment: The reviewers can start after one of the assignees submits their work.

When you change the duration of your composite task later, the time settings for the assignment and the review change according to their current ratio.
In the Context section, select Add Context, and then add a model and some filters.
Add one or more assignees, and if you want to set up a review, add one or more reviewers. You may add additional owners for your task, or share the task with other users.
- You can set up review rounds to define a reviewing sequence:
  1. Add a reviewer.
  2. Select Add Reviewer Add a new round, and then choose either After this round or Before this round.
- You can also add someone who isn't already a member:
  1. To add a non-member, in the appropriate People section, select the dropdown list and then select Invite Non-Member by Email.
  2. Type the person's email address.
Tip

If you add an assignee or reviewer and then decide to substitute yourself or someone else for one of those roles, select the name and then choose Change from the dropdown menu. In the Change User dialog, select the new name for the role.

Note

You can't add the same person as assignee and reviewer.
If you haven't done so already, decide whether to select Activate the task at start date automatically.

If you want to edit your task before sending it out to others, do not enable this option.

Note
You must have one assignee before you can activate the task.
Optional: To add the task to a process, choose a parent process in the Hierarchy section.

You need to be the owner or the assignee of the parent process.

In the Gantt and the List view, tasks are shown as child events of a process, allowing you to quickly see the relationship between the items.
Provide additional information or reminders.
When you're finished filling in the details and are ready to send the task out, do one of the following:
- Select View Changes to review all the changes that have been applied; decide whether to send them out or delete any of the changes.
- If the status is In Progress, select Update and Notify.
- If the status is Inactive, click on the arrow next to the status and then select Activate & Notify.

Results

Notifications are sent to the applicable people.

Next Steps

To change settings and adapt your workflow, you or one of the assignees can convert the composite task to a process. This lets you split up the task into separate events, and group them in a process.