SharePoint Calendars, Tasks and Resource Working Time

SharePoint offers much more than just a task list. The Calendar list is also quite important in the day-to-day execution of a project as it can capture a persons extra-project activities and communicate to the group when folks might not be available. While a project manager can certainly flip back and forth between a task list and a calendar list, we think it is much easier to integrate the two in a single view so you can quickly see when a person is 'out of the office'.

Here's what this integration looks like with IntelliGantt for SharePoint. First, a person would list their 'out of office' events on the calendar. For example:

Note that there is a new field called 'Person' that associates a real person to this calendar event. This is how IntelliGantt knows what individual this non-work time block belongs to. We will go in to detail later in this post to illustrate how to set this up.

When IntelliGantt knows about a calendar list, it will pull the events from it, look for items that contain the 'Person' field and use that value to cross-reference against task assignments. This means that IntelliGantt will show a persons non-work time right in the Gantt chart like so:

It is interactive as well. As you assign tasks, when you select a person you will see their non-working appear on the timeline so as to help you decided if they are the right person for the job at hand.

Finally, if you hover over the non-working time you can see the event description (along with begin and end times) so you know why that person is not available.

So how do we set this up? It will require adding a new 'Person' column in the calendar and letting IntelliGantt know which calendar to talk to via the configuration.js file. Let's show the column to add to the calendar list first.

This is a simple column of type User that needs to be named 'Person'. IntelliGantt will look for events with this column and, if found, will assume the start and finish times define non-working times for the 'Person' value. 

Next you will need to let IntelliGantt know which Calendar list to use for this non-working time information. The calendar container this information does not need to be in the same site as your task lists. We've set things up so that a single calendar list can be used for any time of task lists. This will make it easy for you to have a 'calendar of reference' for everyone to see when people are unavailable. 

Here we have added the calendar information to our configuration file. This one happens to be in the same workspace (as a demonstration) so we use a relative url path. Just in case the image is not clear here is the JSON section you need to define.

calendar: {
        workingDays: [0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0],
        periods: [{ name: 'morning', start: 28800, finish: 43200 }, { name: 'afternoon', start: 46800, finish: 61200 }],
        site: {
            url: './',
            title: 'Calendar',
            begin: 'EventDate',
            end: 'EndDate',
            userColumn: 'Person'
        }
    },

With these two pieces in place, IntelliGantt will merge the task and calendar information into one helpful view.

Change Your Calendar Working Days and Time

In our previous post we introduced how you can give everyone a level of effort and hourly rate so that a cost per task assignment may be calculated. Of course, there are more components to computing this cost, and they are your working day and working time values within a calendar, or many days per week and how much working time per day. By default IntelliGantt for SharePoint 2013 uses Monday through Friday as working days and 8 hours per day of working time (a morning period from 8:00am to noon and an afternoon period from 1:00pm to 5:00pm). This results in a simple project cost as shown below.

You can change both the working days and time via the configuration.js file. This is usually located with your IntelliGantt_Online.aspx or IntelliGantt_Inhouse.aspx file within the Site Assets library. Or it can be in a centralized spot, depending on how you've set up all your SharePoint projects.

Here we see the default working days as defined in an array called 'WorkingDays' within the 'Calendar'. The array is a collection of 7 flags, with the first position representing Sunday. If we want to make Wednesday a non-working day, then we switch 4th flag to '0'.

Now when we see IntelliGantt notice that Wednesday is rendered as non-working time. This also affects the cost calculation as you can see the task costs and rollups have changed as well.

The other piece we can change is the working time per day. Back in configuration.js IntelliGantt has a 'periods' parameter where you can define one or more working time periods per day, their start time and their finish time (in seconds). We can either adjust the 'morning' and 'afternoon' periods by changing the start and finish times, or we can introduce a new period altogether like 'evening'.

Once again we refresh IntelliGantt and see that the cost values have changed again as the new working periods are calculated.

This calendar feature will address issues where countries have different working days and/or working times. We will also be introducing holidays and other special days that are either fully non-working or have distinct working periods.

Simple Assignment Costing with SharePoint 2013

IntelliGantt for SharePoint 2013 enhances basic task list assignments by adding effort and hourly rates for each person and rolling up cost values in a 'Cost' column. There are two main pieces to this feature that we will work through in this blog post.

First, add a new currency column to your task list and name it 'Cost'. IntelliGantt is programmed to look for this 'Cost' column and will store its computed cost values there. IntelliGantt will always compute a cost value, but in order for it to show up in the tool the 'Cost' column needs to be in the active view. Otherwise, if you just have a personal view that shows the 'Cost' column but the other views do not, then in effect you will be the only person able to see the cost values and other people will not.

Second, you will need to supply the effort and hourly rate for each member of the site you want to track this information for. This is done via the 'employee_rates.js' file your IntelliGantt aspx page includes. If you do the basic, minimum installation, then this will be located with your IntelliGantt_Online.aspx page. 

You can co-locate this file with the aspx page as we do when first installing, OR... because we are using all the power of the web, you can also reference a 'global' employee_rates.js file located at a root site that everyone has access to. The benefit of this approach is the file only needs to be generated once. 

One other word about generating the employee_rates.js file. While only you can provide effort and hourly rate information, IntelliGantt can generate the inital employee_rates.js file simply by not referencing one. If IntelliGantt cannot find the employee_rates.js file it will create one using the membership information of the current site. Everyone will then be listed in the 'employee_rates.js' with an Effort of 1.0 (100%) and an HourlyRate of 0.0.

Once we have the 'Cost' column and our employee_rates.js file set up, we can start seeing what things will cost. For example, if you click on the 'Assigned To' cell for a specific task, our rich editor appears that not only lets you adjust the assignments, but also see exactly what each assignment costs.

Here we see that the resource assigned to this task has an hourly rate of $100 and their level of effort is 100%, which in turn means the cost for this 32 hour task is $3200.

You can see everyone's resource information (as defined from the 'employee_rates.js' file) in the 'People' view. Click on the 'People' image at the upper left of IntelliGantt to show this information.

The very first time you open it nothing is selected, so while you see a list of people in the 'All People' selection box, you don't see any values. Simply click on one or more people to see their costing information.

Given the selected person, IntelliGantt will fill in the computed Duration, Work, Effort, Hourly Rate and Estimated Cost values. (Actual Cost as well, but that is a future blog post!).


Notice also that the visible task list in IntelliGantt changed! When you selected a person in the 'People' display, it filters the task list to show only their tasks. This makes it easy to see both their cost and their tasks on a timeline. You can close the 'People' display and it will remember your selection so you have a full view of the filtered Gantt chart.

One more nice little feature is you can collapse tasks and it will show its sub tasks on the same horizontal row, like a swimlane.

Return to the 'People' display to see what your current filter is and the associated costs.

IntelliGantt for Google+

We've been touting our connectivity to Basecamp and Facebook in the last few blog posts, but this time it is Google and their 'Plus' social software in the spotlight. IntelliGantt for Google now uses Google Plus to both authenticate and connect with people in your circles. It's a little different than Facebook in that Google Plus uses loose connections (meaning I can add anyone to a social circle) whereas Facebook requires a strong connection (ie. both parties agree to connect). The end result is the same, however-- creating a resource pool is a snap. Let's see how it works.

We start with the ubiquitous login page. IntelliGantt will use Google Plus's single sign on technology so that this page may just be a flash if you are already logged in.

IntelliGantt requests information about your user profile and if it can create activities for you. You, of course, have the ability to grant or deny this request.

Once past the authentication you are in the familiar IntelliGantt interface which let's you create projects and tasks.

Here is where a bit of fun begins. Remember that Google Plus uses loose connections for filling circles of people. IntelliGantt will request all the folks that are visible from your circles, even the loosely connected ones. This means you will be able to assign just about anyone to your tasks. For example, let's add Guy Kawasaki (I happen to follow him) to our resource pool.

Since Guy is a people person, it only makes sense to assign him to the 'People' task.

You'll notice there is a 'Notify?' checkbox in this control. We're still working on how best to notify Google Plus users when they've been assigned a task. Stay tuned.

Finally, the project with its lone assignment. I hope Guy knows he has a due date coming up.

So which connection method is better, Facebook's or Google's? Like so many things the answer is 'it depends'. Facebook's tighter integration means two users are more likely to interact. However, Google's looser rules means you really can add anyone to your projects. The bottom line is you'll be able to use folks from these two rich systems to create a resource pool for your work.

Improved Projects, Tasks and Swimlanes

In our last post we introduced how you can use swimlanes to see a series of tasks horizontally for specific users. This makes it easy to see what tasks may be unassigned and who has a gap in their production. Then, and I quote,

To make the assignment, expand the 'Basecamp Next' folder once more so that we can get to the assignment editor.

.

That would be a fail. Nobody wants to go here, there and round everywhere to do an important and common operation. So we improved the user experience by letting you simply click on the assignments within the swimlane. You can try it yourself, but first here's how it looks:

This shows the swimlanes for two users with respect to project 'Basecamp Next'. We have selected two users in the PEOPLE list box so that only their tasks are shown. Note that 'Thing 1' is unassigned. We can simply click on the 'Unassigned' text right below the 'Thing 1' task.

Whether by mouse or by touch, things brings up a select box of users to choose from for reassignment.

We will select the user just below 'Unassigned'...

... and see 'Thing 1' shift down into the other users swimlane, nestled nicely between 'Decide' and 'Thing 3'.

We think this is a better user experience for both comparing and reassigning tasks as easily as possible. It's also an example of how we don't rest until things are right.

Connect Project Resources with SharePoint Members

One of the significant issues we've seen with MS Project + SharePoint synchronization is matching MS Project resources with SharePoint members. A resource may be spelled one way in MS Project but exists as a member in SharePoint completely differently. As a result, connecting the two was a point of emphasis for the new IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010.

In this video we try to show how simple it is now:



The key takeway is we've brought the task of aligning resources and members front and center now right on the ribbon. In fact, we feel this is a great example of a complicated action you can accomplished right on the ribbon that required a dialog box back in the days of menus.

Now, given any shared project, just select the MS Project resource in the bottom dropdown and the corresponding SharePoint member in the top dropdown and click 'Connect'.

Some would say it's actually intuitive now.

Grouping Items by their Modified Date and Time

A quick post to let you know of a new feature we recently added to the IntelliGantt Web Part- a built-in view to group items by their modified value.

You can sort of achieve this by editing a SharePoint view so that the sort is performed on the Modified field. However, that just changes the display order of the items. We went a step further and created a series of 'temporal folders' to contain items modifed within the last 15 minutes, within the last hour, within the last day and so on. Here's what it looks like:



You can also combine this with the filters, of course, to see who has changed what recently as well. For instance, if you're waiting for a colleague to finish an important task, you can filter on their name and see if they've changed anything in the last 15 minutes.




Or a project manager could use this to see if anyone has updated any of their assigned tasks before a big team meeting.

Grouping SharePoint Tasks by Assigned To

It's important to have an online location like a SharePoint Task List to share task information with your team. It's also very helpful to have multiple views you can apply to task lists in order to organize task data for you team members. SharePoint views handle the great majority of cases, but we found one particular view we could add value to-- By Assigned To.

This is an important view for both team members and project managers because it allows you to organize by person first and then task-- the opposite of the default task first and then additional meta data, of which Assigned To is one column.

For example, here is the default task list view in SharePoint:




This particular list also contains summary tasks (called 'Folder 1') containing sub tasks. SharePoint doesn't show a full hierarchy so you have to click on 'Folder 1' to see its sub tasks in a separate page:




If we return to the topmost part of the task list, we can apply the 'By Assigned To' view that comes with SharePoint out of the box:

Select the view --




And see it applied --




While the data is there, it's not very effective. There are two main problems. First of all, the orientation is still Task first, then Assigned To as one of many data columns. Second, the view is only applied to your page context-- remember those sub tasks under Folder 1? You can't see them.

The IntelliGantt Web Part solves both of these issues. First, by default we show you the full hierarchy of your task list (including that predecessor task dependency):




Next, we created a 'Resource' view that puts the people first! That is to say, we group all the tasks under a new 'Person' item, which we think provides a more intuitive display for folks to understand.

Select the 'Resources' --




And see it applied --




This let's you see all the tasks from the hierarchy in one view, organized by grouping them under people. Much better.

By the way, you can click on a 'Person' image and your web browser will open up SharePoint's information page for that person.

Filtering SharePoint Members in your Project

SharePoint is quite flexible in how many ways users can become site members. So flexible, in fact, that you can add every person in the company to a root site and have every sub site inherit that member list.

Which is great, unless your company has 50,000 people in it.

We've listened to our customers at large organizations who are using IntelliGantt and the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project to run projects within their departments, with external vendors but not across the entire company. The fruit of our efforts (and your suggestions) are two tools: 1) A resource pool that helps you be more selective with who is included and 2) a resource filter that helps you be more selective with who is excluded.

The Resource Pool



This feature allows you to pull SharePoint members from a specific site, organize them by groups and select individuals you will be working with often. You can add them to your currently selected project by clicking the checkbox by their name, or remove them from the project by unclicking the same checkbox. We even let you enter an hourly rate that will be used when they are assigned to tasks. This is a common scenario and we have a helpful page dedicated to walking you through exactly how it works.

The Resource Filter



This feature is designed to help you exclude people from your project. For example, if the SharePoint site you are working with has 50,000 users as members, I would strongly suggest unclicking the 'Add Members as Resources' checkbox so that everyone is not pulled into the project. Then, use the resource pool above to be more selective about whom to include.

Or, if your groups is more manageable but there are just a few folks (or system accounts) that don't need to be added to your project, you can define any combination of the three tests shown in the picture: 1) display names that start with a string you provide, 2) display names that end with a string you provide and 3) display names that contain a string you provide.

All three test cases are always run, but you can customize the tests per project. This means if you have a couple system accounts, like NT_AUTHORITY in the picture above, you can easily exclude them from the list. If you'd always like to exlude NT_AUTHORITY (and who wouldn't? :)), you can save the exclusion lists as the default setting for all newly created projects going forward.

Check out the help page for this feature as well.

Taken together, IntelliGantt will help you work with your resources as adroitly as it helps you share your tasks. And again, thanks to our customers for letting us know how important resource filtering is.

Overbooked Tasks and Overallocated Resources

My hats off to the engineering folks at TeamDirection for rethinking and reimplementing the 'Show Overbooked' filter in IntelliGantt. Very slick!

With my remaining hats, I doff them to our customers that took the time to give their feedback and help improve the product for everyone. Let's just say folks had a few ideas on how to better this feature.

The result plays very well with IntelliGantt's improved multi-project viewing architecture. In fact, touching on a the 'Sum is greater than the Parts' theme, it's really two different systems playing very well together-- Multi-Project View and Task Filtering. Each can be used by itself, but together these two systems solve two rather severe limitations the old product had in identifying overbooked tasks and overallocated resources:

1) In V3 only projects within a single folder could have the filter applied
2) In V3 the filter only went to 'day' granularity. That is, if a task was less than 1 day or a resource was less than 100% utilized... well... version 4 is here!

With IntelliGantt V4 you can select any combination of projects you want, which should be very helpful when verifying that all the places you put your 'best woman for the job' are still in the same space-time continuim.

And of course, since IntelliGantt 4 supports 'level of effort' per assignment, the filter also does a bit a match and recognizes that less than a day is ok.

Click on the image for the screencast and, if you really want to see IntelliGantt 4 in action, use this link to try it out yourself.

SharePoint and Multiple Resource Assignments

While IntelliGantt works with both WSS 2.0 and WSS 3.0, I'm developing a marked affinity towards the latter. I'm sure under the hood it scales better and such, but I like the fact it models the real world just a little better. Today's case in point, assigning multiple resources to tasks.



If you are (or were) using WSS 2.0, IntelliGantt updates were done with a heavy heart as tasks with multiple resources dropped every assignment after the first-- blocked at the WSS 2.0 single assignment gate. Your sorrow over all these lost assignments may have even spurred you to upgrade to WSS 3.0. All set for the new multiple assignment feature, you probably had a bit of a shock when the task list, after publishing, looked like this:



Fear not, WSS 3.0 does indeed support multiple resource assignments, just not by default. Why, I don't know. But I do know how to activate this feature. To do so, we must modify the list settings for this task list:



Within the list settings page are all the columns available for modification. We want to change the Assigned To column:



The details for this columns shows us that it does indeed allow 'multiple selections', which because its a SharePoint member or group field translates to multiple assignments.



A quick click to make the change we want (don't forget to press 'OK')...



... and the next time you update your task list, you'll see IntelliGantt and SharePoint working with multiple assignments in harmony.