Tasks

Tasks represent anything that you might put onto a to-do list or into a project plan - They are just something that needs to be done... When you create a task, there are a whole lot of pieces of information that you can tell JXCirrus Diary and JXCirrus Project to help it plan things for you.

Information you give to the system

Priority

This is how important the task is. You type it in as a number between 0 and 100 (where 0 is "not at all important" and 100 is "most important"). If you enter a big list of tasks, and give them all different priorities, the tasks with the highest priority will be listed first.

There are actually 2 priorities for each task (just to be tricky). There is the priority that you type in, and then there is a priority that the system calculates. The calculated priority comes about when you have a task that is split up into child tasks. Here is an example:

Parent Task (Priority 20, Calculated Priority 30)

+---------- Child Task 1 (Priority 30, Calculated Priority 30)

+---------- Child Task 2 (Priority 10, Calculated Priority 20)

Right now, you might be saying "Huh! How does that work???"

OK - There is logic to all of this, and it will make sense when you understand a couple of really basic rules:

  1. When you set a parent task to have a particular priority, what you are saying is that this and all of its child tasks will have at least this priority. That is why "Child Task 2" has a calculated priority of 20. 20 is greater than its own priority of 10, so it gets 20. So... Priority flows down the tree until it hits a higher value.
  2. When a child task has a higher priority than its parent, the parent inherits its priority. In fact it will move right back up the tree of tasks as far as it can go. Why do this? Imagine "Parent Task" is in a long list of other tasks. Imagine "Child Task 1" has the highest priority of any task in the system. That would let "Parent Task" move to the top of the long list of tasks.
  3. Any task that is complete has a priority of -200, and the parent task priority won't get passed on to it! So if "Child Task 1" was marked as complete, "Parent Task" would have a priority of 20.

Are you confused yet? Well, there is a little bit more...

Duration

Duration is the amount of time you expect a task to take. This helps the system fit the task into your plan.

Here are some examples of how you can enter duration:

There is one tricky thing about tasks with child tasks... If your task has child tasks, you cannot enter a duration for it. The duration is always the sum of the child duration values.

Due Date

The due date is the time a task has to be finished by. To enter the due date, type in the date directly (see Dates) or use the ">" to select a date/time from a calendar. When the system is doing its planning work, it will always try to plan your tasks so they get finished before the due date (if possible).

Like priority, each task has a due date and a calculated due date. Here is an example:

Parent Task (Due 12-Sep, Calculated Due 10-Sep)

+---------- Child Task 1 (Due 10-Sep, Calculated Due 10-Sep)

+---------- Child Task 2 (Due 20-Sep, Calculated Due 12-Sep)

+---------- Child Task 3 (No due date, Calculated Due 12-Sep)

The rules for this are very much like the rules for priority.

  1. When you set a parent task to have a particular due date, what you are saying is that this and all of its child tasks are due by then. That is why "Child Task 2" has a calculated due date of 12-Sep. 12-Sep is earlier than its own due date of 20-Sep, so it gets 12-Sep. "Child task 3" has no due date, which is like having a due date in 100 years, so it also gets 12-Sep from the parent. So... Due date flows down the tree until it hits an earlier date
  2. When a child task has an earlier date date than its parent, the parent inherits its due date. In fact it will move right back up the tree of tasks as far as it can go.
  3. Any task that is complete has no due date.

Start After

The start after time defines a time where you can start working on the task. This could be because you are missing something that you need to finish the task (and you will have it on the start after date), or because a project is not due to start before a certain date. If a task has start after date set, and it is some time before that date, the task will look different - The green square will be replaced with a grey square with a line through it. This means that the task is not yet available.

You do not have to set a start-after date for a task.

Like due date, each task has a start after date and a calculated start after date. Here is an example:

Parent Task (Start 12-Sep, Calculated Start 12-Sep)

+---------- Child Task 1 (Start 20-Sep, Calculated Start 20-Sep)

+---------- Child Task 2 (Start 10-Sep, Calculated Start 12-Sep)

+---------- Child Task 3 (No Start date, Calculated Start 12-Sep)

The rules for this are very much like the rules for priority.

  1. When you set a parent task to have a particular start date, what you are saying is that this and all of its child tasks start after that date. That is why "Child Task 2" has a calculated start date of 12-Sep. 12-Sep is later than its own due date of 10-Sep, so it gets 12-Sep. "Child task 3" has no start date, which is like having a start date 100 years ago, so it also gets 12-Sep from the parent. So... Due date flows down the tree until it hits an earlier date
  2. Start dates DO NOT flow back up the tree (there is no need for them to)

Any task that is complete has no start date.

Percentage Complete

The percentage complete for a task represents how far through a task you are. 0% means you have not started work on it and 100% means you have finished.

If a task has child tasks, then its percentage complete will be calculated by combining the percentages from the child tasks. This means that you cannot modify the percentage if there are child tasks (it is also why you cannot mark a task with child tasks as complete - You have to mark the children complete instead.)

Person

This applies to the Diary++ add on only.

If the resource is set to "<Parent> ..." then it will use the same person as the parent object.This is the person who will do the actual work on the task. You can select anyone from the list of Resources.

Repeating Task Information

Tasks can be set to repeat as often as you like. Whether they repeat and how they repeat is set on the Repeating tab of the Entry dialog. There is a full section on repeating tasks under Repeating Tasks/Appointments.

Dependencies

Dependencies let you say "Don't start this task until this other task is finished." This is covered in details in the Dependencies section.

Baseline

This applies to the Diary++ add on only.

Baselines record the amount of time that you expected a piece of work to take when you first created the tasks in JXCirrus Project. As the work progresses, the baseline lets you compare how you are currently going version how you expected to go. For example, if you expected a project to take 3 months and finish on the 1-Aug, then you can set that as the baseline, and that will remain constant even if you add more tasks to the actual work. This is covered in more detail in Baselines.

Time Spent

This is the actual amount of time that you spent on a task. The system keeps track of this by recording sessions. You can add extra time spent through the "Spent" tab on the Entry dialog, or through the Timesheet (if you are using JXCirrus Project). This is covererd in more detail in Sessions.

Planned Time

This is the any time that you are specifically planning to spend on a task. There are 2 types of plans for a task - There is the automatic planning done by the software, and there is manual planning (which is done by yourself). Manual planning is only available in the Premium Edition, and is covered in Manual Planning.

Progress Type

Some tasks can be set up to mark their percentage complete by themselves as you do work on them. This is covered in Automatic Progress.

Information the system gives you back

Some of the information for tasks is calculated from the other information in the task.

Remaining Time

The remaining time is (Total Time * (100 - Percentage Complete)/100)

If the task duration is 10 hours, and it is 60% complete, then the remaining time will be 4 hours.

Time Spent

The total time spent is the sum of the sessions that you have recorded for the task. If this task has child tasks, then this is the sum of the time spent for this task PLUS all the time spent for the child tasks.

Baseline Status

This applies to the Diary++ add on only.

This reports the state of your project against the baseline. The baseline state will be one of:

See Baselines for more information.

Detailed Planning Information

JXCirrus can give you some detailed feedback on how it is planning your tasks. If you want to see this information, click on the "Show Details" link in the item view.

Must Start

This is the date/time that you must have started work on a task in order to finish it by the due date. If your task is 1 hour long and is due at 11AM, then 10AM will be the "must start" time. If your task reaches the "Must Start" time, then the system will issue a warning for the task.

Ideal Start

The Ideal Start is the time that you ought to start work on this task in order that you finish everything on time. This takes the due dates of all of the tasks in the entire diary into account. If you have already passed this time, then the task will be highlighted yellow to indicate that there may be a problem with hitting your due date.

Where your information comes from

When you have a complex set up to tasks (i.e. lots of tasks that depend on each other), then it can be very hard to work out where the priority/due date/start time for the task is coming from. When you click on "Show Details" in the item view, the system will show you where all of these other bits of information come from. This can help untangle complex webs of tasks (if you let yourself get into that state).