About Working on Your Tasks

Ways to Work on Tasks

Work on your tasks by choosing one of the following:


To work on a task by:	Perform these steps:	For more information, refer to:
Delegating the task to someone else and including others as task assignees	To delegate the task to another person, you can add the person as an assignee and remove yourself as an assignee. You can also add additional assignees and remove assignees as needed. You cannot assign tasks if you have the Reader role.	Assigning Tasks
Adding deliverables	Add documents or other items, such as a part or ECR, that are needed to complete the task.	Deliverables Page
Defining subtasks	Break down your task into subtasks by adding a task schedule to the task. You can assign these subtasks to other people and have them complete the tasks just like any other task.	About Creating Tasks
Specifying dependencies for the task	Specify the tasks that your task depends on.	About Task Dependencies
Routing the task to be reviewed, commented on, or approved by others	Route the task and all its components to other project members and non-members. When a task is 100% complete, the system promotes it to In Approval, if the "Needs Approval" attribute is set as "Yes." During the In Approve state, the task assignee typically creates a route to get approval for completing the task. The assignee can route the task at any point in the lifecycle to gather comments and feedback. Otherwise, the task is promoted to Completed, if the "Needs Approval" attribute is set as "No." Note: A route created under a project task contains only content from bookmarks or sub bookmarks from the task's project and task's deliverables.	Collaboration and Approvals User's Guide: Routes
Adding links to relevant Web sites	Add bookmark URLs for the task.	About Favorites
Participating in discussions about the task	Post messages regarding the task and view replies from others.	Collaboration and Approvals User's Guide: Discussions
Indicating your progress in completing the task	To indicate incremental progress on the task, update the % Complete. When you indicate anything above 0%, the system promotes the task to In Work. When the task is complete, choose 100% Complete. The system promotes the task to In Approval.	Indicating Progress in Completing a Task
Completing the task	After having the task reviewed and approved (usually by routing the task), enter an Actual Finish Date, which promotes the task to Completed. Your business process may require the Project Lead to complete the task instead of the task assignee.	Indicating Progress in Completing a Task
Changing basic information for the task	You can change the name, description, and the mandatory/optional status for the task.	Editing Basic Information for a Task
	If you have not started work on the task, which means it is still in the Draft state, you can change the estimated start date. When you move the estimated end date, the duration does not change; instead, a constraint will be added to the task with a new date. Note that your date changes may be constrained by dates for the parent or subtasks and dates for other dependent tasks.	Editing the Task Schedule
Monitoring other information for the task	View approvals needed for the task. View the lifecycle for the task, including signature requirements and blocking routes. View a history log of actions performed on the task.	Approvals Page

About Task Progress

As you work on tasks assigned to you, you should update the % Complete for the task. It's a good practice to update the % Complete values for your tasks on a daily basis. This ensures that people monitoring the status of the project and task have an accurate and up-to-date assessment of how the task and project are progressing. Without an updated status, the project dashboards and other metrics will be inaccurate and potential project risks and successes will go unnoticed.

The % Complete values for subtasks roll up to the parent task % Complete value, so as progress is made on subtasks, the parent task reflects that progress. Similarly, the % Complete values for all top level tasks roll up to the % Complete value for the project. Because the values roll up, you should always update the % Complete values for the lowest level subtasks. For example, suppose a task has two subtasks and you are assigned the task and one of its subtasks. You should update the % Complete value for the subtask only. The assignee for the second subtask should update the % Complete value for that subtask. The progress both of you make on the subtasks will roll up to the task automatically.

Additionally, changing the % Complete value for a task can change the lifecycle state of the task, its parent task or project, and its subtasks. There are some rules associated with making % Complete changes (for example, you cannot set a parent task to 100% if it has a subtask that is less than 100%). For a detailed list of the rules and consequences related to % Complete, see About Tasks.

Another way to indicate progress on a task is to manually promote the task to its next state using the Lifecycle page or the Edit Schedule page (see Editing the Task Schedule). However, manually promoting a task is not the preferred method because it does not allow for incremental updates to the task's progress. For example, if you promote the task from Draft to In Work and then to In Approval, the % Complete values jump from 0% to 100%, without ever reflecting incremental progress. If you use the % Complete values instead, the system automatically promotes the task and interested parties can get an accurate assessment of the amount of work that still needs to be done.