Project Folders and Prioritized Tasklists

The Big Change – Project Folders and Prioritized Tasklists

Among the unique and wonderful features of LiquidPlanner, we have two “trees,” which is a funny sounding way of saying that we have two ways to organize your data.

One “tree” is used for grouping and organizing tasks. We used to call this one Categories. The other “tree” is used for scheduling and prioritizing tasks. This one we used to call Projects.

That’s right, used to.

What we found is that the way the trees were named, users weren’t discovering their unique characteristics. So they would start in the projects tree to build out their projects. But since LiquidPlanner requires you to prioritize your projects, and doesn’t support multi-tasking, lower priority projects would end up getting pushed way out in the schedule. And then we had some unhappy and understandably confused users.

But that was then. Here’s what you need to know to build out your projects in the new and improved version of LiquidPlanner…

Project Folders

Project Folders are where you should begin organizing your tasks if you are managing multiple projects at once or managing highly complex projects. Group tasks in each folder by project, client, or functional area. Here is an example an architecture or design firm might use:

• Project Folder 1 (Client 1)
  • Sub-project folder 1 (Project 1, Client 1)
    • Task 1 (P1, C1)
    • Task 2 (P1, C1)
    • Task 3 (P1, C1)
  • Sub-project folder 2 (Project 2 for Client 1)
    • Task X (P2, C1)
    • Task Y (P2, C1)

• Project Folder 2 (Client 2)
  • Sub-project folder 1 (Project 1 for Client 2)
    • Task Green (P1, C2)
    • Task Blue (P1, C2)

Prioritized Tasklists

Prioritized Tasklists are where you will organize your tasks if you manage simple projects, one-at-a-time. More likely, if you’re managing multiple projects at a time, the prioritized tasklist grouping is where you will prioritize your tasks (just like it sounds!).

The scheduling engine will schedule your tasks in the same order they’re listed. High priority items at the top of the list will be scheduled first. Lower priority items at the bottom of the list will be scheduled later.

By building your projects in projects folders, you can use prioritized tasklists to interleave tasks. This way, rather than having to run one project at a time, you can schedule tasks from multiple projects within the same timeframe. Let’s look back at our previous example…

Say we’re running all three projects simultaneously. Our highest priority items are the first ones listed for each client. So we will create a tasklist called “Immediate,” and then assign the highest priority tasks to that tasklist.

• Tasklist 1 (Immediate)
  • Task 1 (P1, C1)
  • Task X (P2, C1)
  • Task Green (P1, C2)

Our next tasklist we might call “Medium,” for medium priority tasks, or we might create a tasklist for each of our upcoming development sprints (Sprint 10, Sprint 11, Sprint 12), or even just tasklists by month (September, October, November).

The point is, tasklists are there for you to use as you wish – this is one of the ways LiquidPlanner earns its name – it’s very adaptable to your workflows.

In Summary

If you’re managing multiple projects at a time, build out your projects in project folders. Add all relevant tasks.

Switch to the prioritize tasklist view. Drag and drop your tasks into the order you want your tasks to be scheduled.

If you wish to add more structure, create a tasklist or two and drag your tasks into one or the other. Keep in mind that LiquidPlanner will schedule the highest priority tasklist, first.

Questions? Search the forums in the field above; there’s a lot of great stuff in here!

Thanks for the many great new features this past release!

I’m a little confused about the terminology change. I wanted a way to double-check features that the developers had marked as done, so I added two categories (under the old terminology) called “Unverified” and “Verified”. Everything starts in the Unverified category, which means that whenever I want to double-check completed items, I just filter for all items that are marked as done, but still in the Unverified category. If I like what I see, I switch it to the Verified category.

How do I get this functionality under the new terminology? At the moment I feel that my setup looks silly/confusing given that it has two projects (under the new terminology), one project called Unverified and another project called Verified.

Keep up the great work you’ve been doing!

it has two projects (under the new terminology), one project called Unverified and another project called Verified.

The new terminology actually calls these “Project Folders”, so for your situation, you could just call them “Folders” and visualize them as a folder with a label saying “Unverified” or “Verified”.

The copy of the callout image that leads to this posting is grammatically incorrect. Not to be picky, but “This post may be effected…” should be “This post may be affected”. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/affect-ver… I am enjoying the product so far. cheers!