Overview:
The Task Manager is the primary method of managing day to day activities in Traction Enterprise, allowing you to view Tasks that are in progress, how complete the activity is, and assign those Tasks to Operators.
Task Manager also allows you to view each of your employees to see what their workload is, and who is assigned each Task.
Requirements:
In order for Activities to populate on the Task Manager, you'll want to ensure:
- Crop Plans have been assigned to fields
- You've established a plan and workflow for bringing data into your Traction Enterprise account (either by Operators completing Work Orders, Machine Data, or by manually entering Activity Records when needed)
- You have established healthy task naming conventions. Naming tasks correctly will significantly help you organize your work. For example:
- If you want to be able to quickly judge how complete corn planting is, you may want to call it 'Corn Planting' to distinguish it from your soybean planting activities.
- If it would help to further isolate it based on management practice, perhaps you can name it 'Organic Corn Planting'. However, by giving it a distinct name, it will show as a unique activity in the activity view so you will not see how complete you are on all planting tasks in one progress bar.
Process:
To get started, navigate to Operations>Task Manager. At the top of the screen, you can choose between managing tasks by activity or by assignee.
- Activities are tasks that accomplish a specific job on all the fields on which that task is required.
- Assignees are the Operators who are assigned work to be completed.
Task View
Use the task view to see if any activities have been completed in the field, but are not updated in Traction Enterprise. Often one or a few fields will either not have been assigned or were assigned and not completed. By examining these, you can decide if the field was completed and not recorded (missing cost), not completed (lower potential yield due to missing the application), or skipped.
Tasks across fields that have the same name are grouped as Activities. Activities are grouped by Active, Upcoming, or Completed.
- Active activities have at least one task assigned or completed, but not all are completed.
- Upcoming activities do not yet have any tasks assigned or completed, and are shown in order of planned start date.
- Completed activities have all tasks marked as complete.
You can see how complete an activity is by viewing the progress bar. This will show the percent of acres completed, along with the number of boundaries that are complete. The progress bar also shows the tasks that are assigned as well as unassigned for quick assessment of how complete the activity is.
To add a task to a field, click the "Add Task" button and select the type of task you want to add to the system.
- Next, choose an existing task template or choose to create a new task and specify the task details as needed (name your task, specify the date, inputs to be used if applicable, etc.)
- Then pick the fields you wish to assign this task to
- You will see a summary of the task you have just defined
- If you wish to assign it now, select the users you want to work on this task from the pick list
- If you have already completed this task you can mark as complete. The planned rates defined earlier will be used when completing the task.
Manage existing tasks by clicking "Details". This allows you to view the list of fields on which a specific task exists as part of the field plan. Check the box to select individual or multiple fields fields on which you want to assign work, edit details, or remove tasks. Activities are grouped here as All, Unassigned, Assigned, and Completed.
Assign Work
- Select the Operators to which you'd like to assign this work and then click Save & Close.
Unassign Work
- Select the Operators you would like to remove and then click Confirm
Edit Task
Depending on the type of Task you're working with), click Edit Task to modify:
- Task Name
- Task Type
- Timing
- Mark Tasks Complete
- Task Type
- Add New Inputs (or create new Tank or Dry Mixes)
- Change Default Input Storage
Delete Task
- Select the tasks you would like to remove and click Confirm
To add tasks to fields in bulk, select "Add to Another Field." You'll then be prompted to specify any task details, select the fields to which you want to add this task, and whether or not you want to assign work or mark tasks complete in bulk.
Other info:
- The Search option allows searching for specific fields to narrow down the list shown if a large number of fields are associated with this activity.
- The map will display each field where this task is assigned. The fields will be color coded based on whether there is a current task assigned, in progress or completed to quickly identify where work is being done, and what should be assigned next.
- Clicking on a task in the list view outside the checkbox will bring up the task detail dialog for that task
- Clicking in the map will select fields for further action, or to view them in the Field Detail View
Assignee View
Assignee View will display all users in the system, and an overview of tasks assigned to them. This page can be used to communicate with the team what each operator will be doing during the day as well as gauge whether each user has an appropriate amount of work scheduled.
The view is split between Active Users and Inactive Users. Active users have had work assigned or completed in the last 10 days.
Just as you could from the "By Task" view, you're able to add Tasks to field plans in bulk (or individually, if needed), by clicking on the Add Task button, specifying whether you want to use an existing task template or begin from scratch, specifying task details, choosing fields, and assigning work (or completing tasks, if needed).
Click to select an individual assignee and view a summary of the tasks assigned to that operator. Tasks are grouped based on their status: In Progress, Unassigned, Paused, Assigned, and Completed
- In Progress will display all tasks that are actively in progress
- Paused will display any tasks that have been paused.
- Unassigned will display all boundaries with a task planned that has no work order assigned.
- Assigned, not started will display tasks that are planned but not started.
- Completed will display all boundaries with tasks marked as complete in the last 2 days.
Clicking on one or more check boxes or fields in the map will display an action bar in the lower right corner, where you're able to:
Assign Work
- Select the Operators to which you'd like to assign this work and then click Save & Close.
Unassign Work
- Select the Operators you would like to remove and then click Confirm
Edit task
- Depending on the type of Task you're working with), click Edit Task to modify:
- Task Name
- Task Type
- Timing
- Mark Tasks Complete
- Task Type
- Add New Inputs (or create new Tank or Dry Mixes)
- Change Default Input Storage
Related Articles:
Getting Started: Field Plans
Can I assign multiple Crop Plans to the same field boundary?