Adding and Linking Documents to Tasks - Part III

We've been exporing the new IntelliGantt Web Part feature that let's you add documents to a Shared Documents list via dragging and dropping from your computer onto a task item. In Part I we showed how to set up the lookup column to enable this feature then dragged a local file and dropped it onto a task. In Part II we showed how you can link tasks to existing documents in your document lists via in-place editing with auto-completion boxes. In Part III we will show how documents linked to tasks work with templates.

We left off with two documents associated to two tasks. With better naming, one could imagine that Folder2 is really a reusable template containing two steps we must do again and again. Furthermore, if the goal is to build a portable typewriter, then the associated document is valuable for every new portable typewriter we build.




With the IntelliGantt Web Part any task or summary task can become a template. First we need to open the tool window so we can get to the pencil.




We select the folder we wish to turn into a template and click the pencil image to write information to you local computer.




When we click on the pencil, a 'Save As' dialog appears that lets us name the file and save it to disk.




This template file with the '.igantt' extension can be used by dragging and dropping onto lists or folders in any IntelliGantt Web Part. Here, though the image doesn't show the mouse cursor, you can see the 'drop arrow' is pointing to the 'Testing' task list.




Once the template is dropped, the IntelliGantt Web Part creates the same group of tasks that seeded the template-- including their assignments and linked documents.




With this feature you can create a library of reusable project fragments that can be dropped onto any IntelliGantt Web Part list or summary task. Common tasks can be templatized such that they also contain starter documents detailing how to perform the work needed. One or more users can be pre-assigned to tasks to reduce the amount of housekeeping work in the day-to-day of a project manager. You can even store these '.igantt' template files on a file server so multiple project managers can all work with the same templates.

Adding and Linking Documents to Tasks - Part II

In Part I of this series we showed how you can connect a SharePoint Task List to a SharePoint Shared Documents List with the IntelliGantt Web Part. This covered both setting up the 'Documents' lookup column in the Task List and adding one or more documents via drag and drop onto the task item. Today we will show how you can manage task/document links and work with documents already in your Shared Documents List.

Here is where we left off yesterday. The image file 'igwebpart_128_blue.png' had been dropped onto the 'Item' task in the IntelliGantt Web Part (IGWP). IGWP both uploaded the file to the Shared Documents List, added the cell entry with the document name and created the 'has documents' icon at the far left of the grid.




When you move the mouse into the 'Documents' cell you will see '+' and '-' icons appear around the document. These let you add and remove document links. For example, here we will remove the document link:




The cell entry disappears and the helpful icon indicator does too. But while this removed the visible link in IGWP, the document is in fact still in the Shared Documents List.




We can actually re-link the same document with the same task again by using the '+' icon to add this link:




IGWP will scan the Shared Documents List and provide an auto-complete box for you. This way you easily find the document you with to link by name:




Now the document has been re-linked with the task. It's visible within the 'Documents' column and has the helpful 'has documents' icon once more.

Tomorrow we will look at using this same linking concept with templates in Part III.

Adding and Linking Documents and Tasks - Part I

It's been a quiet month on the blog which can only mean one thing-- new feature time!

We introduced a great way to add local files as attachments to tasks by using one of the most familiar gestures: drag and drop. Not long after customers began asking us if we could also use drag and drop to add files to a Shared Library and have it link to the task. The benefit here is then, unlike attachments, documents associated with tasks could support versioning, permissions and other advanced features.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

We're happy to say we heard you and are proud to introduce the simplest way to 1) add one or more files to a Shared Documents list by drag and drop and 2) automatically link them to the task you dropped them on.

Here's how it works. Below is the IntelliGantt Web Part visualizing a simple SharePoint Task List. You'll note this SharePoint site actually has multiple task lists, but we used the explorer feature to select as single task list.




Also in this SharePoint site is the common Shared Document list. As you can see we have a folder and a couple documents within the list.




Here is the one plumbing step required for things to work. What we need to do is add a Lookup Column to a Task List and associate it with the Shared Documents list. Here is the lookup column we created. And yes, it does need to be named 'Documents' for the IntelliGantt Web Part to recognize it:




Now we can open Windows Explorer on our local PC, find a file and drag/drop it onto a task. Notice the 'upload arrow' that appears to help identify the task drop target:




Once the file has been dropped the IntelliGantt Web Part will detect if a 'Documents' column pointing to a Shared Documents library is in the task list view. If a 'Documents' column exists then IntelliGantt Web Part will upload the dropped file or files to the defined Shared Documents list. As a result, first you see the document associated with the task visually:




And we can also see the document has in fact been uploaded to the Shared Documents physically:




Since it's in a document list we can checkout, edit and version the file for a more complicated work item. Back in the IntelliGantt Web Part, because the file is linked to the task, you can always mouse over the attachment to quickly navigate to documents. First point...





... then click.




In Part II we will see how IntelliGantt Templates take advantage of these linked documents to create reusable components that can automatically link with existing documents.

TeamDirection Outlook Basecamp Integration-- TOBI

A quick note to let everyone know a new product has been introduced to the TeamDirection stable-- TOBI. As you might surmise from the title, TOBI connects MS Outlook 2007 & 2010 to Basecamp.




You give TOBI the URL to your Basecamp dashboard and TOBI let's you select which projects to bring into Outlook. Once selected, all the Milestones, Todo Items, Comments and Attachments will be visible within Outlook.

Of course, we didn't stop there. TOBI supports both instant updates and automatic synchronization. Instant updates happen when you make a change to a connected Outlook item. For example, if you mark a task as complete in Outlook, then the corresponding Basecamp item will be marked completed as well-- immediately.

Conversely, if you update an item in Basecamp via your web browser, TOBI periodically checks for changes in Basecamp. The interval is configurable but the default is every 15 minutes. When a change is spotted, then the Outlook task is updated.

There are many more features like enhanced data and 'smart' collision resolution that we will be covering in the days ahead. In the meantime, if you'd like to check TOBI out here is a 'Getting Started' page and the install page.

Heads Up! How to Combine Tasks with Announcments

One sign of a well engineered product is when customers call you and thank you for creating a feature that really helps them out. The other sign is when it never occurred to you the product could actually perform said feature. Invariably when this happens, the use case turns out to be a really good idea. So I thought I'd pass it along.

As you know, we created the IntelliGantt Web Part for SharePoint to look for Task Lists by default. Of course we also wanted to be able to include custom lists, specialized lists and heretofore unknown lists created by IT departments that could also serve as task lists.

But it never occurred to us to add the Announcements List into the mix. Thankfully it did to one customer.

They added an announcements list to the IntelliGantt Web Part so that folks could have an easy 'heads up' to the most important things of the day pertaining to a project. Our goal as always been to minimize the context switches as users work with the data. Including the announcements within the IntelliGantt Web Part is right inline with this philosophy.

Here's what it looks like:




As you can see the announcements list can be positioned right at the top. Also, the intrinsic nature of this list lends itself well to the day-to-day of projects as announcements are only visible for a specific amount of time. Once the announcement goes 'stale', it drops off the list and new announcements appear. The end result is the project manager has just increased the odds that team members will see important communications in context.

If you'd like to experiment with this a bit, you just need to know the server template id for the SharePoint Announcements List-- 104. Plug this value into our 'Include Template ID' property as shown below:




Finally, this same technique will work just as well with any SharePoint list. But we thought it was so neat to use a 'lowly' announcements list to accomplish something quite useful-- telling people the importing news of the day right within their project.

The Five Year Zoom

Well, that's what we called our increased timescale miniaturization internally. The exact amount of time you'll see on the Gantt will depend on the width of your monitor-- we can compress time but we cannot change the laws of physics :).

For instance, if you have a 23-inch monitor and you go to 'Full Screen' mode then you should be able to see a five span for the Gantt chart. We received this request from construction companies and governments (which surely can't be a coincidence) who often manage projects spanning many years. So as of version 1.0.107 these customers will be able to see the even bigger picture.

We did update the presentation just a bit as well to handle the new zoom factor. For example, here is a project in the default zoom:




As you can see this projects extends well past the timeframe for this view. However, if we slide the 'zoom thumb' all the way to the left, we see the project easily fits within the display:



Notice that at the highest level, the 'major calendar' section shows the year and the 'minor calendar' section shows the half year. We shortened this to H1 for the first six months and H2 for the second six months.

Everything is vector-based of course so there is no perfomance penalty for any zoom magnification level you may choose. And naturally the larger the monitor and the greater the number of pixels the more time we can fit on a page. So, if you really need to see a decade worth of project tasks in a Gantt Chart, you have the justification needed to request that super-thin LED 46-inch monitor.

Or just let us know if you need the 'Decade Zoom'. Either way, we're happy to help.

Mapping Start and Due Dates to Estimates

We have a new feature in the IntelliGantt Web Part, the ability to map start and due dates, that I'd like to highlight with an actual use case. A few customers have asked if its possible for one task list within SharePoint to contain both current and estimate start/due dates and do a comparison between the two.

Let's go to an example. Here is a task list with the standard Start Date and Due Date columns defined. To this we also added EstStart and EstDue, short for Estimated Start Date and Estimated Due Date.




All the data we need is there, but it can be difficult to spot delta's between current and estimate values in this view. So what we've done is create a single SharePoint page with two IntelliGantt Web Parts added to it. The top one shows the current Start Date and Due Date and the bottom one shows the EstStart and EstDue dates.




Even though you see two IntelliGantt Web Parts, the underlying data is coming from the same task list. What we did was configure the second IntelliGantt Web Part to use the estimated start/due date columns and specify which view to use-- the 'Estimates' view. Doing so ensures that when anyone visits this page, this will be the initial presentation they see.

The mapping is done by going into the web part editor and opening the 'IntelliGantt Mapping' category:




The other adjustment we did was to set the initial view on the bottom IntelliGantt Web Part:




By doing so we can craft the columns to display so that the estimates show up. This is possible because the IntelliGantt Web Part adapts its task list display to match the viewable columns defined in your SharePoint list view.

This result is you can view two complete charts of the same data and quickly identify discrepancies-- like all the tasks within the 'Extra' folder taking an extra bit of time.

Now Supporting SharePoint Online in Office 365

Just a quick note that we have validated our IntelliGantt Web Part for SharePoint Online in Office 365. The folks at Microsoft we're kind enough to let us work with the beta and, after a couple hops and a skip (but no jumps!) we had the sandbox version up and going.

We could even put the web part into the Project Management category, which we are excited about:




And here it is running within our teamdirection.sharepoint.com site, which is 100% fully SharePoint Online within Office 365.




The really cool thing is you get complete web part editor backpage support so configuring the IntelliGantt Web Part is a snap. And for consultants setting up Office 365 sites for their clients, don't forget about our branding features.

SharePoint Task and Discussion List Integration

Plenty of statistics abound highlighting the importance of communication within projects. So much so that in addition to tasks, SharePoint also includes a Discussion List with which to share thoughts and ideas. However, because tasks and discussions are in two different lists it's not immediately obvious how best to discuss a specific task, or to find discussions about tasks 3, 4 and 5. On top of that, there is a significant transition required to move from a task you just scrolled into view, to a topic somewhere in the discussion list and back to the same position in the task list.

Naturally we couldn't let another day go by without addressing this situation so we've enhanced our IntelliGantt Web Part to integrate with SharePoint's out-of-the-box Discussion List. The goal was to provide an easily found anchor point to a topic (a task), eliminate the need for a dreaded context switch and encourage more participation in general. Here's what we came up with.

In the 'tool window' to the left of the task list, when you move the mouse into it a set of actionable icons appear for the current row. If you have one or more Discussion Lists in your SharePoint site, IntelliGantt will find it and present the 'Discuss' icon. Single click on it to create a new topic:




A popup dialog appears with the title of the task as the new topic name and a text box to type your message in:




This creates the new topic within the Discussion List. To solve the context switch issue, we also created a new column in our Task List called 'Discussions'. This is a standard Lookup Column that links to the Discussion List. The IntelliGantt Web Part will add a link for you into this task field so that the discussion is linked with the task.

Now that this information is available, when you view the Discussions column in the task list and mouse over an entry, the IntelliGantt Web Part will show you the entire discussion thread:




Of course, there's only the initial message in this discussion. So we made it really easy to respond to messages right inline by providing a 'Reply' button.





This both solves the context switch problem and encourages participation by making it easy to view and respond.




The actual data is stored within a Discussion List of course, which makes it available for searching and for backup procedures.




We have a more detailed walkthrough on our website and additional information to help set up the option lookup columns for cross-linking tasks and discussions.

SharePoint Task and Calendar List Integration

SharePoint is a great way to share task and calendar information online with your colleagues, has the capability to richly integrate task and calendar lists but out of the box it's lists are basically rooms of information under the same roof-- a SharePoint site. Showing folks how to view a task list in calendar format is one of our most popular blog posts. However, this option shows everything in a Calendar and you lose the inherent goodness of a task list the the specificity of important events.

The IntelliGantt Web Part integrates your task list and calendar list so that they can work together. It provides two important capabilities:

1) The ability to selectively choose which tasks to 'surface' in a SharePoint calendar.
2) The ability to see this relationship in context with the task.

For example, in a project of several hundred tasks not everything requires an event-- even if you're an event planner. Only a subset requires placement on a calendar, and it should be dynamic enough that as things change events linked with tasks can be removed and new ones easily added.

With the IntelliGantt Web Part you can use our new tool window to quickly identify the task information you'd like to link an event with by using your mouse:



The information from the task is then applied to the new event. Task start and due dates become event start and end dates. The task comments become the event comments.

Furthermore, if you provide a lookup column in the task and calendar list IntelliGantt will use them to cross-link the task and calendar event. The result is you can swiftly move from event to task and back again. Or, within IntelliGantt, you can view a task and hover over it's linked events to quickly see the very latest important information without leaving the context of your project:



Less clicking means fewer context changes which means you can stay focused on the task at hand.

We have a page dedicated to this feature showing more detail. Better yet, you can try out the IntelliGantt Web Part and start working in tasks and calendars today.

iPad Using SharePoint Web Services

If you searched for 'iPad SharePoint lists.asmx", 'iPad SharePoint UpdateList' or something of that ilk chances are you arrived at this blog. This is interesting if for no other reason than there is no help available for consuming SharePoint web services from an iPad that I can find as of this blog's posting.

Anyone from Microsoft willing to help me connect an iPad to SharePoint via web services?

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.

Using Drag and Drop to Create Task Templates

We're very proud of the fact that the same IntelliGantt Web Part UI can work with both SharePoint and Basecamp. One of the best tests of any product is how well it works with multiple data sources. It forces us to examine and implement features that are valuable for project management in general. One such feature is the ability to create templates.

As you know, the IntelliGantt Web Part, whether running as a desktop application or as a Web Part embedded within a SharePoint page, supports file drag and drop. By default these files are saved as attachments to the task item you dropped them on. Now we've taken things a step futher-- we've implemented the ability for the IntelliGantt Web Part to serialize tasks to an 'igantt' so they can be used as a template. (OK, it's really an XML file, but we use the igantt extension to identify these templates).

You can then drag one or more of these igantt files onto a project or summary task and it will create the tasks stored in the igantt file as children of your drop target. If that description didn't grab you, here is a walkthrough with screen captures.




Here we see the IntelliGantt Web Part within a SharePoint page. We've already expanded the task manipulation pane by clicking on the little blue button in the upper left corner.

When we move the mouse into the 'empty' manipulation pane, icons appear in the row under the mouse. These icons show what you can do with this task item.



For example, we see the 'Summary' row as the following:

1) Write to File (the pencil)
2) Make Discussion (the caption -- creates a topic in a Discussion List)
3) Make Event (the calendar -- creates an event in a Calendar list)
4) Add a Sub Task or Sub Summary (the plus)
5) Remove the item (the minus)

Since we're focusing on task templates this post, imaging you just clicked the pencil. What you'll see is a 'Save As' dialog:




Here you will name the file that will store the task information. We really wanted to seed the filename with the name of the task, but we have to wait for Silverlight 5 to come out. After the file name 'Summary1' has been typed, the Summary task and its children are then saved to file 'Summary1.igantt'.

Now you can view this file with Windows Explorer and, better yet, drag it over any project or summary task in the IntelliGantt Web Part:




Notice the helpful blue 'upload' arrow that shows which row this igantt file will be applied to. Here we are targetting the 'Tasks' project with a drop of our Summary1.igantt file.

Once we drop the file, you will see the task group we had saved magically reappear in the new list:




If your igantt'd tasks have assignements, then IntelliGantt will try to match the user from the old source with the same user in the new source and make the assignment. Also, if the group of tasks in the igantt file have self-contained dependencies, these will be reproduced as well.

Finally, if you happen to be one of those folks using both SharePoint and Basecamp, you can copy from one and drag/drop to the other.

We did tie this feature to a privilege that can be turned on or off. By default it actually is off in the IntelliGantt Web Part (unless you are running on the desktop or are an administrator).

Here is a link showing how to enable the 'Writing Task Blocks' privilege in SharePoint.

The Big Kahuna of SharePoint Gantt Charts

Navigation is a good thing when you're trying to find something. The common structure for burrowing into sites and lists within SharePoint is often called the 'chrome'. This may consist of the site links across the top of a page, or the quicklinks to the side. But how useful are they once you've arrived at your destination?

For example, you may have heard we make a really great gantt chart for SharePoint lists. You probably also have a really great monitor (or two) with lots and lots of available pixels. One of the things our Silverlight gantt chart can do is make use of 'full screen' mode, whereby every inch of real-estate can be devoted to your project plan. We thought this to be so useful, we made it a single click away.

Here's a shot of the IntelliGantt Web Part running within Internet Explorer sited within a SharePoint 2010 page.



Notice two things:

1) There's an abundant amount of blue desktop we can fill with our SharePoint view.
2) The IntelliGantt Web Part resides within the SharePoint navigation chrome-- even in IE9, which made a point of maximizing the viewing experience.

We decided to maxmize it all the way. As of the 1.0.83 release you will see an orange-ish 'expander' arrow pointing to the upper left.




When you click it, the IntelliGantt Web Part will go into full screen mode and devote every available pixel to showing your task list and timeline.




Now you can see the really big picture of your project-- and have good reason to get an absolutely gigantic monitor.

Passing URL Querystring to IntelliGantt Web Part

One of our design goals for the IntelliGantt Web Part was to make it easy for users AND for system integrators. For instance, we know how important a brand is so we reserve an area of the gantt chart to display a customizable name with a url link. Additional configuration options like colors, zooms, custom list IDs and more are available via the web part editor or passing parameters via the initParams string (our control being a good Silverlight citizen).

Then someone asked us 'can I pass configuration parameters with the url querystring?'

What a simple and powerful idea! Last Wednesday we said 'no', but today we can say YES!

We have created a table of all the parameters IntelliGantt recognizes. You can use these parameters via the initParams property if you've configured a 'Site Only' instance of the IntelliGantt Web Part, or you can pass these parameters to the SharePoint page housing the IntelliGantt Web Part via the url querystring and make things really dynamic.

The best example of this new capability is how you can now select a task list and view by placing information in the url querystring. Let's say I have a SharePoint site with two task lists: Tasks and Big Project. By default, the IntelliGantt Web Part finds all the task lists in your site and displays them:




Yes, we can either use the 'Exporer' to select just one project, or we can use the web part editor page to select a single project. But what if we could determine the list to show before-hand and construct a url with selected project and view information? Then we can actually plug the web part into a multi-step workflow process.

First, let's add a SelectListIDs value to the url so that just one project is selected. You can find a task list id value by first navigating to the task list:




and then going to the List Settings:




Once in the List Settings, notice that the url string in your web browser contains a querystring parameter of List=:




We can use this exact same list idea value in the querystring of the url of the IntelliGantt Web Part page. Rather than just 'List', we use 'SelectedListIDs' because we think it's clearer and we support multiple lists in the view. There, we create an url like so:




Finally, you can add multiple paramteters to the querystring just as you'd expect-- by concatenating them with the '&'. So, now that we've selected the right list, we can also select the view to use via the query string by appending the view name:




And voila, the task list and view for the IntelliGantt Web Part have been determined by the values in the querystring. What if the same parameter is defined in the web part editor? Then the web part editor value will take precedence. In order use the querystring parameter, make sure the corresponding field in the web part editor is blank.

As we add more configuration options to the IntelliGantt Web Part, we will make sure they can be set via the web part editor, the initParams or the querystring. This will ensure our design goal of making our web part as flexible for system integrators as possible.