IntelliTask Gadget for Google Sites

We introduced how to place the IntelliGantt for Google PM tool within a Google site, but that was really just a placeholder for our new IntelliTask Gadget for Google Sites. The IntelliGantt for Google application is built for project managers with larger screens. The IntelliTask for Google application is built for everyone else, including folks just using their phone. The basic idea is projects managers have their tool, team members have their tool and everyone shares the same project data. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to drop a task list into any Google Site and have that task list be 'Site Aware'. That is, only tasks within the site are shown to site members. The IntelliGantt for Google tool let's project managers view all the task lists across all their Google Sites and manage these projects in total. There's a lot to cover so this will be multiple posts, but let's start by adding our IntelliTask Gadget to a Google Site.

You will want to create a Google Site. Here is my management page showing two sites I have created.

Within a Google Site, you can create pages and insert tools or gadgets on each page. The first page is created for you-- the Home page.

The is the most basic, empty site, but its the same process for every Google Site, no matter how many tools or gadgets already there. On this page we can start an edit mode that will let us insert tools or gadgets. Click on that dark pencil button on the upper-right of the page. This will bring up the editor tool bar.

When you click on the 'Insert' tab on the tool bar a list of built-in tools appears for you to choose from. You can of course place any of these onto the page. However, we want to use this page to track user tasks, which is perfect for our IntelliTask for Google Gadget. So, we click on the '... More Gadgets' option.

This page is a little spartan, but at least to the point. On the left side select the 'Add gadget by URL' cell. On the right side a simple text box appears for you to type in the URL for the IntelliTask for Google Gadget. Type in the following:

https://www.intelligantt.com/Google/IntelliTaskGadget.xml

The next screen lets you configure the dimensions a bit. Remember that many people may be viewing this page and not all of them have your monitor. Also, you will want to make sure this page is not too large for smartphone screens as well. Play around with the settings a bit to make sure you have the best fit for your team.

Save your changes and you will see the IntelliTask for Google Gadget on your page.

Not just on your desktop or laptop either. IntelliTask for Google work very well on your phone too!

You can even place it within your GMail.

Finally, let's rename the 'project' task in IntelliTask for Google to a name that will help us find it in our IntelliGantt for Google in just a bit. You can do this by simply clicking on the cell you with to edit and typing in the new name.

So what do we have here? By creating a Google Site, we have:

• A place on the web I can manage
• The ability to add additional tools in the context of this place
• The ability to manage who can participate in this place

The IntelliTask for Google works with these principles to also give you:

• A task list you can place on any Google Site Page
• A task list that is not only Google Site aware, but also Google User aware
• A task list that works with a more full featured PM tool
• A task list that works on any OS, in any web browser on any device

Of course all this isn't obvious from the photos in this post, but we didn't want to throw everything at once. In the next part we will show how IntelliGantt for Google works with the task lists you created so that PMs can add tasks, create dependencies, make assignments and choose which fields are updatable. You simply go to the IntelliGantt for Google web page to start:

IntelliGantt Task Gadget for GMail

We love to integrate with existing platforms here at TeamDirection. Ever since we starting connecting with Google's amazing variety of services, we've been quite busy. Except for one thing-- Google Tasks, as they presently work, are absolutely useless for a group. A project manager simply cannot post a task to someone else's google task list. Thankfully, we did find another way.

TeamDirection is introducing its own GMail task list gadget that is cross device, cross browser and most importantly cross user.

Let's start with IntelliGantt for Google. This is what the project manager will use to create and schedule GMail (and Google Site!) aware projects. Here we are showing a couple projects with three tasks each, one of which is assigned to John.

What we would like to do is put in a 'John aware' task list in the empty area to the lower left marked 'Right Here'.

Thankfully GMail provides a way to do just this in its Settings. Go into Settings, select the 'Labs' tab and enable the 'Add any gadget by URL' option.

This will create a new tab option your Settings screen labeled 'Gadgets'. Select the 'Gadgets' tab and add a gadget by its url using: https://www.intelligantt.com/Google/IntelliTaskGadget.xml

When you return to the main GMail window you will now see an IntelliGantt task list in the heretofore empty lower left of the window. Space is a little tight, but IntelliGantt recognizes the logged in user and provides a list of their tasks.

When you finish a task, you can simply mouse click or finger touch in the 'Done' cell.

This marks it as completed in the original project as well so the project manager can see the work getting done.

Users can also make edits to tasks right in place. For example, to change a task's name, mouse click or touch the Display Name cell. This brings up an in-place text editor.

These changes, naturally, also go right back into the project for the manager to see.

There's always more work to do, though. Since John finished his task (and changed its name), the project manager assigns John to another task.

Which John will see right in his GMail window.

We are making the IntelliGantt Task List for GMail freely available. Simply follow the installation steps above and you're off and running. Project managers will need IntelliGantt for Google to create and manage the projects.