Set Work Hours, Track Progress, and Manage Resources

Set Work Hours, Track Progress, and Manage Resources

Multi-tasking is the norm of the day and not all tasks are the same. Some tasks require more time and effort than others. But how do you set and track the time a resource spends on a task?
 
Set Work Hours  
Zoho Projects lets you set work hours for individual tasks. Work is calculated based on your organization's business hours.
    •    work hours per day - number of hours to be spent on a task each day
   
    •    work % per day - percentage of business hours allotted for the task in a day

    •    work hours - allows flexibility by specifying work hours over the entire duration of the task

If work hours are not set then the task duration is taken as the total work.




When adding a new task select Set Work to allot work hours.




Track Work Progress  
Once you have set the work hours for tasks it becomes important to keep track of productivity. The Planned vs Actual chart does just that. Click on the user to view their individual tasks.

 

    •    If the user has more time on hand the difference is shown in green with a '+' sign.
    •    Red indicates the user is taking more time than planned and is prefixed with a '-' sign.



Manage Resources
The Resource Utilization chart shows how each team member's time is utilized. You can add and manage tasks from the chart. The chart supports the following functions:
    •    Search users 

    •    Add a new task 

    •    Increase or decrease work hours 

    •    Move tasks to another day 

    •    Move tasks from one resource to another
    •    Convert to PDF

 

Use Case: A content management head requires the team to spend 5 hours developing content and 2 hours for peer review. Here is how he sets about adding tasks and allotting work hours:
  1.     Adds task Content Development and sets work to 5 hours.

  2.     Adds task Peer Review and sets work to 2 hours. 

  3.     Using the Planned vs Actual chart he can see who is on track and who is behind schedule.

  4.     The Resource Utilization chart tells him if any resource is free to take up any extra load of work.

  5.     The manager drags and drops the task to a different day or to another resource to balance the workload.

Try out this feature and give your suggestions in the comments.

Regards,
Chaitanya

      • Sticky Posts

      • Tip: How to print the Gantt View

        Though we move from the traditional project management system (using papers) to an online project management system, we still prefer to have a printed copy of the activities/tasks that are to be done in the project. This way, we can carry the to-do lists with us for the meetings and refer when we are offline. The print option, available at the right side of the page, allows the users to print the project information across all the modules. However, this option failed to print all the tasks & milestones
      • Project Management via Emails in Zoho Projects

        We write mails to communicate. In Zoho Projects, we can write mails to collaborate. Yes, Zoho Projects supports Email based project management. The mails that you send turn into tasks, bugs, project comments, forum replies, etc. The following are some of the frequently asked questions that might be of some help to you. What are the pre-requisites to manage my projects through Emails? You need to have a personal / business mail ID that is registered and confirmed with accounts.zoho.com To learn more
      • Four types of task dependencies

        "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs."                                                                                                                  - Henry Ford Projects, small or large, are driven by simple work units called tasks. Monitoring standalone tasks might look simple but as the workflow becomes elaborate, tasks may start relying on one another. In project management, this relationship between tasks is termed as "Task Dependencies". Dependency between tasks arise
      • Task and Project numbering

        Zoho Projects now generates a unique number for each project, task, and issue added. The auto-generated ID is a combination of a prefix and a number which is assigned by Zoho Projects. The unique IDs for projects, tasks, and issues will be useful to track, identify, and search easily. You can modify the settings to enable or disable the Project and Task IDs.  Learn more on how to modify Prefix & ID settings for projects and tasks. Issue IDs cannot be disabled, only its prefix can be changed (tasks
      • Task Inline Editing Enhancement

        Hi All, Today, we have made an enhancement in task inline editing. In 4.0, task edit is moved in a single screen in a pop-up. We designed this in-order to make the task edit across the product to be the same. Let it be in Feeds, Tasks & My Tasks tab, Calendar & My Calendar tab, a click on the task title will open the popup and user can edit the values. Customers pointed us the inline editing was very useful to them & how much they miss that in 4.0. Based on the feedback, we have rolled out this enhancement.