Ganttic Update - Task Splitting

Ganttic New Feature: Introducing Task Splitting

With the latest update, we gave the Task Dialog window a new look. What changed? 

• Our visual style is finally unified and Ganttic more clear for its users. Finally, the same visual logic follows our Resource, Project and now… Task Dialog window! 
  
• All the essential resource planning tools are now displayed as a toolbar and you can find all necessary task features in one place. 
• As a brand new feature, we introduced task splitting that our users have been asking for more convenient planning. So finally task split is here! 
• Additionally, we gave the task timing settings a new polish which means more convenient planning for you!

Here's how to use our new updates for even more smooth planning: 

How Task Split Helps Your Planning In Ganttic?

Easy drag and drop makes general planning convenient. Just pick the resources and suitable timeslots and drop the lines. But projects are agile. Real-time scheduling often faces different challenges, mostly unexpected ones. Changes, additions, wrong timings, and lacking resources are just a few of them.

You have a new urgent task to fit in the project between other tasks OR

Task end up to be too complex to handle for one person OR

One big task should be divided into smaller ones to finish it on time.

Task Splitting makes all those cases easy to handle. There is no need to:

• make extra tasks and reschedule old ones, just split the big task;
• change the durations, you can split the task with 15-minute punctuality;
• hassle with rescheduling old tasks and fit new ones;
• stress! Everything is under control!

There are tons of cases when task split will be handy, saves time and reduce extra hassle. 

How To Split Tasks In Ganttic?

Splitting tasks in Ganttic is made really easy:

1. Click on a task you need to split to open Task Dialog Window;
2. Choose “scissors sign" in the middle of the Task Dialog toolbar;
3. Choose the date and time (if you like to specify) from where to split the task
4. Congratulations! You have now two tasks out of one. Notice the split point which is marked with little cutting dots. You can now drag and drop both tasks to assign them to different times and people.

 You can easily add both tasks to different projects and use color schemes. Both two tasks work as independent tasks from the splitting moment.

Feel free to try it out in your new Task dialog window and see the tutorial in our helpdesk. Ask our support for help in case you have a problem. You are always welcome to give some feedback.

Fresh Look On Task Dialog Window & More Simple Task Timing

On a daily base, we collect feedback from our users and therefore we are just aiming to do our product more convenient and intuitive to use. We have gotten quite a bit of feedback about the functionalities of the Task Dialog Window. And we are happy to make it even better!

Ganttic OLD Task Dialog window

So we made simple changes to make planning even more user-friendly. Look at the one toolbar where all the options are! 

Selecting task timing option that fit you the best is now improved. Actually - you do not have to select timing anymore. Just enter the project timing data that you have and let Ganttic do the rest for you!

All the possible timing fields are shown in the task window and green ones are the ones that are selected as default settings, grey ones are calculated by Ganttic based on the info in green fields. In case you would like to enter different data to grey fields, just choose them and enter.

Ganttic Tips & Tricks: 

Terms In Ganttic For Task Scheduling

• Task Start time - date (&time) when your task is starting. You can also choose "all-day tasks"

• Task End time - date (&time) when a task should be completed

• Task Duration -  calendar time of how long it takes to finish the task. PS: task duration also includes holidays, absence, weekends, etc on time count if not set differently.

• Task Busy Time - actual working days and hours the resource/employee is working with the current task. Busy time is based on resource working time (length of the working day) settings and is automatically calculated excluding the time when the resource is not working its nights, holidays and absence charts. 
  

   For example, if the task starts on the 1st of January, takes 1 week, and the working days are 8h/day, the busy time is 40 hours. Task duration hereby is 1 week (7 days). Task Start time is 1.01 and Task End Time is 7.01.

• Utilization - shows the percentage (%) of talent skills "use", machinery usage, etc. during that visible period. Maximum usage is always 100%. For better planning, you can also include part-time employees and see who is overburden or vice versa - who has plenty of free time.
  

How To Schedule Tasks Easier From Now On?

You can simply use the task scheduling data which is most convenient for you. Or the information that you actually have. Fill in the Task Timing gaps in mind - green fields are for your data, grey fields are Ganttic calculations based on your data.

For convenient usage, the default settings (fields that stay green by default)  can be changed from the Ganttic Settings --> Task timing menu. Have a look and choose the timing preference you use the most.

From the user perspective, there is no need to think anymore if the right calculation and time count is switched on. Just fill in the info you have in the green slots and fill in other slots in case you have different info available.

If you face some difficulties, see more details in our helpdesk and feel free to drop a message to our support team. You are also welcome to share your feedback with us. 

Task Scheduling- Best Practices To Use In Ganttic

As we have an update in Task Dialog Window we would like to go through some easy basics of task scheduling to make sure your scheduling is the most efficient. We also try to give a few additional tips & tricks about convenient scheduling.

Have a look! Maybe you already follow all those practices? But maybe there is something you can take with you from here. Go those best practices through and let us know in case you need some more information about anything else.

1. Drag And Drop - Quick And Easy Scheduling
   

Ganttic is a kind of drag and drop software. So drag and drop is the champion of task scheduling. It's the easiest and fastest way for you to allocate resources to projects. Just drag… and drop the task in the timeline. It might even be THE best practice to try out to make your work easier!

If Drag and Drop is something you use on your daily scheduling bases, make sure you have Autosave switched on. Autosave saves automatically the tasks that are dragged and dropped and makes planning more clear and fast. Autosave does the saving for you and does not open the Task Dialog window for every "drag and drop" and task length change. You can still do more detailed changes just clicking on a task to open the Task Dialog window. Try it out if you did not yet!

Read more about Pros And Cons of Drag And Drop Scheduling Software

 2. Task Data Field - Customize The Info For Your Needs

Task Data Field is useful to fill in for everybody, who needs some extra info to define the task. You can add different details to the task so the assignments would be more clear. With the help of Task Data Field, you can actually add some extra description, important phone numbers or for example map to see the location of the task. It can be anything important for you to make your planning more easy and transparent. Imagine the beauty od Task Data Fields like adding another column with info in MS Excel.

If you do not want to go into details and use Ganttic more for visual planning, you can use Task Data Fields color schemes. With Color Schemes you can easily add custom data for coloring and filtering. Hereby make sure you are using list data that can be filtered by your needs.

For example,  use different colors to indicate your task status: planned, confirmed, in progress, finished. By better visuality, choose each of them the color that may fit with the status for you. Statuses are just one sample you can customize.

Read more about how to add data fields

 3.  Color Schemes - For Visual Overview

One of the Ganttic strengths is visuality. Colors can be added in the way you benefit from them - to tasks, statuses or any other means you wish. It can be work types, task importance or place where the task is happening. One of most the common practice is Task status.

 4.  Advanced Timing - To Schedule With Control

Based on Ganttic statistics, the most common way for Ganttic users to schedule tasks is by using the start and the end date. For example, assigning a consultant to a company to perform an audit. You know when the contract starts, and you know when it should be done. Easy and clear!

But Start and End Date are not the only metrics that let us schedule tasks. We can also see from Ganttic's case, that there are scenarios where the start time or the end time is not set. There are cases when you know the starting time and approximate hours of work (Busy time) to get the task done. In Ganttic, the planning is still easy! Just enter the info you know and let Ganttic do the rest of the calculations for you. It even shows you the right visual overview in the graph and all info is set in reports. Could it be even easier?

In Ganttic you can play with different data, times and info to get scheduling done and keep the control over your plans. Just fill in the info and let Ganttic do as much for you as possible. Control over your projects means less stress. Less stress means a happier life. 

 5.  Assigning Tasks To Multiple Resources - For Smart Planning

It is not a rare case when different people are working with one task. Or sometimes one task is also connected with other resources, like meeting room, yellow van or special studio for recording.

To save tons of your time and energy, you can actually assign one task to multiple resources at the same time. Just pick one, assign the task with all the information and details that are important for you in the Task Dialog Window. Before closing the window, just mark another connected resource with little “+” next to their name. This way you can assign the same task to multiple users at the same time.

If you still did not use this feature, read here more about assigning tasks to multiple resources

Enjoy your new scheduling tips, task split and more convenient ways of making tasks. In any case of questions contact our support. Feel free to share any feedback with us!

You did not try Ganttic out yet?

We have a free trial you can try out for FREE or sign yourself up for a demo!  Enough of hassle in planning! Let's make it a piece of cake!