Child Tasks
When you select a task, you will notice one of the buttons appears below the
grid is named "Children." This is designed for a more complex task that
you might wish to break down into sub-tasks. Clicking on "Children" will
bring you to a screen like the one below.
It's empty. No tasks there at all. See that "Back to Root of
Estimate" link? You can click on that to go back up to the main root level
of you task list. But, for now, let's just add some more tasks. I'm
going to type something into "Description" and estimate the number of hours I
think the subtask will take and then click "Add".
As you can see, I have added to subtasks. I estimated the "Generate DAL
and BLL" at 1.75 hours, but I estimate "Add Tables" at 0 hours. Now, I am
going to break down "Add Tables" even further, but selecting it and click
"Children" again. And I'm going to add a few sub tasks to the "Add Tables"
sub task. So, we are going two levels deep here. You can going as
many levels deep as you want to.
Notice that in addition to the "Back to Root of Estimate" link, we also now have
a "Tables and Data Layer" link. This breadcrumb gets built for easy
navigation back up the task tree. If we click on "Tables and Data Layer,"
we will go one level up.
Look at the "Scheduled" column and the "Add Tables" row. It says "0.00 of
0.60". This means you have estimated 0 hours of time at this level, but
there is a total of 0.60 hours estimated from child tasks. Also, notice
the "Children Status" is now changed to "ChildrenTodo." If we click on "Back to
Root of Estimate," we will go back up to the root task list.
You can see that child tasks estimates get accumulated back up to the main task
list. This is a great way to brainstorn your estimates, breaking things
down into managable estimatable chunks.
Logging Time Against Child Tasks And Task Completion
It's easy to log time against any of these tasks. Let's drill into "Tables
and Data Layer" and then select "Generate DAL and BLL." Click start timer.
Accumulate some time and then click "Write To Timesheet." Now we have some
actual time logged against "Generate DAL and BLL." Look at the completion
status, though. It still says "Todo."
Don't forget to select your task and click "Done." Now it says
"ReadyToInvoice." This is pretty important, because only tasks
marked "Done" will get Invoiced when you generate an Invoice. You can
learn about generating invoices in Hourly Projects and
Fixed Price Projects.
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