Project Management Procedures

General

Those who assign tasks or have had tasks assigned must follow these procedures for:

• Adding Tasks
• Updating Tasks
• Reporting Progress, and Choreography Stages

Adding Tasks

To add a Task (Task Manager or above access only):
Most tasks you will add will belong to a parent task. ie you might add a new Scene Animation task.

Steps:

1. You will select the parent task.
2. Select New Task (Top right of screen)
3. Fill in all the details.
4. Select Save (Cancel if you want to back out)

What to fill in and why:

• In the new Task make sure you leave the Dependancy tab untouched.
• By default you will be the task owner. Usually this is OK so leave it.
• In the Human resources tab, select the people you are assigning this task to (Only those users with dotProject accounts and with upgraded access level will appear in this list).
• Fill in the description (this is a permanent description for this task) and fill in additional comments that are appropriate to this initial entry.
• Make sure you check the Notify box or no-one will get notified of the task!
• Now go to the Dates tab and choose a Finish date. Typically this will not be the actual finish date but the date on which you want a progress report.

To Update a Task

(Contributor Access or above only)

Updating a task is the process of reporting your progress or identifying issues. It is available to ANY user with Contributor Access or above.

Steps:

1. Open a Task
2. At the bottom of the page you see a Tab labled New Log. Click on it.
3. The New Log Entry fields display. Fill them in.
4. Select the Update Task button at the bottom of the page.

Mandatory Fields:

• Progress
• Notify Creator
• Description (Just put in notes – ie where you are at or why you are creating the log entry etc)
• Check ALL of the other contact check boxes
• If there is a problem check the Problem Checkbox
• If you have soemthing to show/contribute then put in the URL to that item.
• If you think you are done with this stage mark the Approval Status as “Awaiting Approval”.

The Task is now updated.

Reporting Progress

Each task may comprise more than a single stage. For most tasks using the progress% field will suffice for tracking its progress. ie Rigging tasks are typically 2 stages – Squetch Rig and Face Rig. The Squetch rig must be applied first then the Face rig is applied. This means that progress up to 50% tells us how near to completion the fitting of the Sqetch rig is. 50% means the Squetch rig is in place and the task is ready for FACE rigging. 100% means the model is fully rigged. If adjustments need to be made AFTER the fact then whoever is amending the rig can adjust the progress up/down as required AND note all progress in New Log entries.

Each animation scene though will have only 1 task in dotProject. Instead of progress, each scene will have a number of stages as follows:

When you think you are done with a stage log it as “awaiting approval”. A director will then either log the task as “not complete” with a description of why, or log it as “not complete” but in the next Choreography Stage.

See Dot Project Wish List for the history of this feature.

Old progress tracking system

This is the system that was used before the Choreographgy Stage field was added so some tasks may still be in one of these stages.

1. Hand out (Task assigned, material downloaded, pitched by Bob)
2. First check, usually its a layout/blocking sort of thing no secondary movement i.e. follow thru,overlaps.arcs , cushions,dialogue. Back to the animator with a conversation or notes.
3. 2nd check, should have most of the above mentioned added.
   If there’s still a problem back again to the animator for more refinements.[note the last stage of animation is the hardest and most time consuming in other words the first 80% is relatively easy the last 10% is time consuming and tough. Also its at this stage the program rears its ugly head but the rigs are great so it may not happen.
4. Last check hopefully and its on to dialogue if we haven’t a already added it. slight tweeks
5. Final check off before going to maps, lighting and special effects.

When you are updating dotProject for each of your Scene Animation tasks you will update the progress as follows:

Phase 1 is complete = 20% Progress
Phase 2 is complete = 40% Progress
Phase 3 is complete = 60% Progress
Phase 4 is complete = 80% Progress
Phase 5 is complete = 100% Progress

Note you can also update part progress ie 50% means Phase 1 complete and 1/2 way through phase 2.

category: DotProject, Help