HelpProject & Resource Managers

Adding tasks to your project

You may want to add tasks to your projects to:

  • Sub-divide projects into manageable pieces
  • Assign or allocate pieces of a project to different resources
  • Create milestones within a project with their own start and end dates
  • Independently track progress, billing, and costs for parts of a project

Tasks can be organized into multiple hierarchical levels. You can add up to ten levels of tasks. Tasks can also be moved and reordered.

Adding a task

To add a task to a project:

  1. Go to Project Management > Projects, and click the name of the project. Or, create a new project.
  2. Click the Tasks tab, and select Add Task. Or, if you’re adding a sub-task to an existing task, click the  icon in the parent task row.

A dialog displays.

  1. Give the task a name and complete any other fields, which are described below.

Click the Show more link that appears in the lower, right-hand corner of the dialog, to see all fields.

  1. Click Save.

Hover over the Resources link in the Assigned To field to see who is currently assigned to a task.

For more information on assigning resources to a task, refer to Assigning tasks to team members.

Key task fields

Field name

This field...

Code

Specifies a code that can be used to represent the task

Dates

 

Defines a date range for the project. Defaults to the project’s start and end dates, but you can update this.

These dates do not limit time entry in any way – that is, open tasks can be used from the moment they’re created, even if their start date is in the future.

Time & Expense Entry

Determines the billing status of the task: Billable Only, Billable & Non-Billable, or Non-Billable.

If you select Billable & Non-Billable, resources will be able to choose which option applies to each task they work on in their timesheet.

Cost Type

Specifies whether the costs for the task are tracked as a capital expenditure (CapEx) or an operating expenditure (OpEx). If you don’t need to track tasks by cost type, you can mark them as Unclassified.

Estimated Cost

Estimated Hours

Defines estimates for the task. These can be compared to actuals in Replicon reports.

If allocations have been set up for a project, estimates are based on allocated hours, not the estimates you enter here.

Searching for tasks

If you've added many tasks to your project, you might need to use the search field to find tasks and work with them.

You can add a partial term to the field, and it will display all tasks that include that string, along with all of their parent tasks. If you want to view sub-tasks of the list of tasks returned, click the Show Matching Sub-Tasks filter option, and enable the check box.

You can also click the Resource Assignment filter to show only tasks assigned to the resource you select.

Editing or deleting a task

We don’t recommend deleting tasks, as retaining them may be required for audit purposes. Tasks that are in use cannot be deleted, although they can be closed to prevent additional time and expenses from being entered against them.

To edit or delete a task:

  1. Go to Project Management > Projects, and click the name of the project whose task you want to edit.
  2. Click the Tasks tab.
  3. Select the icon for the task you want to edit or delete.

An Edit Task dialog displays.

  1. Make your changes, or click the Remove Task link in the lower, right-hand corner, as required.

 

  1. Click Save.

Moving and reordering tasks

By default, tasks are listed in the order they were created. You might want to change the order in which a project’s tasks display to make it easier to find task (for example, by ordering alphabetically), or to represent the task’s priority or expected start or end date.

You can also move any task from one branch of a project to another. Tasks retain all of their sub-tasks when they are moved.

If you plan to transfer a project from Replicon to QuickBooks or Microsoft Project using Replicon’s integration tools, do not alter the order of tasks in Replicon as tasks cannot be transferred correctly if their order has been changed.

You cannot move tasks to different projects.

To move a task:

  1. Go to Project Management and click the name of the project whose tasks you want to move.
  2. Click the Tasks tab.
  3. Select the task you want to move and hold down the mouse button.
  4. Drag the task to the new location and release the mouse button.

The black rectangles that appear when you drag act as guides, showing what level in the hierarchy the task will be moved to.

FAQs

How can we prevent users from entering time beyond the start and end dates of a task?

A task’s start and end dates do not affect team members’ ability to enter time against that task. Instead, the Allow time entry beyond start and end date of the task option available in timesheet templates can be used to block time entry. To prevent a user from entering time outside of a task’s dates, ask your administrator if they can clear this option in the user's assigned template.

Do we need to add tasks?

No, tasks aren’t required. Resources can enter time against the project instead.

Do I have to assign the top, project-level ‘task’ to resources?

No, anyone on the project team can enter time against the project as a whole.

Should we assign tasks or team first?

All existing team members will automatically be assigned to any tasks you add. But, if you add a new team member after creating tasks, the new resource will not be automatically assigned any tasks.

Therefore, if you want all team members to be assigned all or most tasks for a project, you will save time by adding the project team first.

Can we prevent resources from entering time against the project as a whole?

Yes. To do this, enable the Allow Time Entry against Task Only check box in the Project Info dialog.

How can a task within a project use a different cost or billing type and different estimates than the project as a whole?

In Replicon, tasks and projects can be reported on independently; task-level values are not summed to arrive at project level amounts. However, you can set task-level summable values (such as estimates and actuals) to sum in reports, if you want to see whole-project values using task-level data.

You’ll probably want to choose to make estimates either at the project level or for individual tasks, not both. You can also prevent users from entering hours and expenses at the project-level, so that all amounts can be tracked for tasks only.