With tasks 1.7 mostly put to bed, I’ve been thinking over the kinds of reporting options I’m going to add in 1.8. If you have a type of report you’d like to see or some related functionality, post a comment here.
This post is part of the project: Tasks Pro™. View the project timeline for more context on this post.
I’ll get things started:
A view of tasks completed (distinguish completed early, on-time and over-due) in the last week, 30 days, 90 days, etc. or for a specific time period.
I know this was meant as a one-person app, but what about adding a simple “assigned” field. The ability to create a set of users that could be chosen from the list and pulled in the search, reporting etc. Maybe a “PRO” version that you charge for.. I’d buy it 🙂
Dean, take a look at the FAQ and my donation page for more information on the multi-user version.
Please only use this thread for reporting features. The tasks Yahoo Group is a good place to discuss features, or you can contact me directly.
Alex, I like your initial ideas a lot. It would be really useful to see which items came in on time or over time (very scary, though!) You can’t really get better at managing your time and planning how long jobs will take unless you get feedback on how long each *actually* took.
I’m a pretty visual person, so I’d be interested in representing this graphically somehow. Perhaps as a frequency distribution, with days over or under on the x-axis (i.e 0 in the middle of the axis, then negative numbers to the left and positive to the right), and number of items in that bin on the y-axis. I suppose if you’re good at estimating the time needed for a project, that would be a normal curve centred on 0. Or perhaps a Gantt type chart, with red segments for overdue periods and green for ‘under-due’ periods. That would give more detailed info on individual tasks.
It would also be good if it could track the number of times you’ve cheated and changed the due date of a project!
I don’t know how easy it is to do graphical stuff with php…
Great ideas, thanks!
I’m shying away from the Gannt stuff right now because I think dependancies make the app more difficult to use. I may change my mind in the future though, who knows.
I am planning to do some graphical reporting, likely it will be bar graphs rather than pie charts because I can make them look better. 🙂 The trick is deciding what should be graphical, I think the overdue/on-time report is good candidate for a graphical chart. Showing completed tasks by period would also work well with a bar chart.
Keep the ideas coming!
Hi,
just a thought, maybe have a look into SVG (XML based Vector Graphics kinda like flash only from Adobe – as they seem to push the whole thing a little, bundling it with acrobat reader…)
It would be a possibility to create Charts and stuff without
having to create images…
If it must be images, maybe have a look at JpGraph?
http://www.aditus.nu[...]ph/index.php
Bye
Nike
I’m not really looking for technology suggestions as much as I’m looking for what kind of data you would want to see in the reports…
Hi Alex.
Great app. Very clean.
Reporting Requests:
Check boxs to:
– Expand All
– Show All Notes
– Show Completed Tasks
For a given date range.
I know that you have distant goals for a collaborative tool. I would second the addition of an “Owner field” that you could sort by. This doesn’t need to be the full blown multiuser system that you list as version 3 (though that would be great). It would be a simple list to “add another person” and then a pull down to “assinged to person”
Very cool and clean app.
ps. I would also be interested in integration into Geeklog and/or a Blogger API feed out the back.
Thanks for commenting.
I want to make sure I’m understanding you, so bear with me. ‘For a give date range’ means all tasks opened/modified/completed during a specific date range? I imagine they should be options, right? I agree with the checkboxes for showing notes and completed tasks, but I’m not sure about the ‘expand all’ box. I’m planning for the reports to have their own interface (suitable for printing), not the existing tree display.
Just the addition of an ‘owner’ field without the associated business logic is kind of a half-baked solution in my mind, so I’m not willing to do it. I have to make compromises at work, but not in the apps I build on my own time. 🙂
You can use the ‘user fields’ in the database to add this field if you choose to, I know several people who have done this.
I am ‘integrating’ into these blogs through their bookmarklets rather than their APIs. I think I can get in through Blogger’s bookmarklet. I took a quick look at Geeklog’s code but didn’t see a bookmarklet. If there is one, I can likely pass the data in that way. I generally wait for a bribe to build the bookmarklet integration, so if it is worth a donation to you and you can help me test it, I can add the integration for you.
I just installed the program, and it’s great. Very easy to use, very handy.
Reporting-wise, a simple excel/csv export of all tasks, arranged in order of parents-children (just as in the web view) would be awesome. It could then be edited to one’s heart’s content to make a nice looking report.
Also, a simple printable view of any section of the tree, including a user-definable range of comments would be awesome. If I could also filter out only items which have been added/changed since the last update, that would be perfect.
I’d say keep the reporting simple, like the rest of the app. Gantt charts and so forth are mostly useful for people who can afford more powerful software. This program’s simplicity is what attracted me to it. To that end, a data export seems very logical — simple to make it look nice, and the user can do more advanced queries on the export through GUI tools (rather than MySQL).
—
Nik
Please remove asterisks to email. Damn spambots
Great ideas Nik.
I like the CSV export idea, I hadn’t thought of that.
I’m planning to add a printable link on each view – probably for 1.8.