SD Task wall view

Summary The SD Task wall is another way to view and organise the tasks in an SD. It shows them as cards in columns, one column for each category. You can add your own categories, each with a colour, an action and an order, and drag tasks from one category to another without affecting the SD's own view: the two views work independently and don't conflict. The task wall can also group the tasks by assignee, or show them against time as a Gantt chart.

Steps

Step 1

Open the SD whose tasks you want to see.

Step 2

In the row of grey tabs just above the SD's column headings, click Task Wall, between SD History and Gantt. The SD Task wall opens, showing the SD's tasks as cards in a column for each category. Each column's heading gives the category's name and the number of tasks in it, for example WIP : 7, Urgent : 0 and On hold : 0. In the bar above the columns are a search box and the buttons Back to SD, Category (highlighted), Assignee and Gantt.

Adding a category

Step 3

Click the grey cogs icon at the far right of that bar, below Global Search. The Categories panel opens on the right of the screen. It lists the SD's categories, each with its Name, Color, Action and Order.

Step 4

Click New Category at the bottom of the panel. Four boxes appear in the panel: CategoryName, CategoryColor, CategoryAction and CategoryOrder.

Step 5

In CategoryName, type the new category's name, for example "Non urgent".

Step 6

In CategoryColor, type the colour the tasks in this category will be, for example "green".

Step 7

In CategoryAction, set the action the tasks in this category will have against them, for example No Action.

Step 8

In CategoryOrder, enter a number. It sets the order in which the category shows up on the task wall. For example, if the other categories are numbered 0 to 2, giving the new one 4 puts it at the end.

Step 9

Click Save, at the bottom right of the panel. The panel closes and the new category appears on the task wall as a column of its own.

Moving a task to another category

Step 10

To move a task into another category, click and hold the three lines on the right of the task's card, drag the card into that category's column, and let go.

Step 11

The task now shows in its new column, and the bar at the top of its card takes the category's colour. The number of tasks in each column's heading changes to match. Note. Moving tasks on the task wall won't affect the SD's own view. The two work independently, so you get two views of your tasks that don't conflict with each other.

Grouping by assignee, and the Gantt chart

Step 12

To group the tasks by assignee instead, click Assignee in the bar above the columns, between Category and Gantt. The task wall shows a column for each person, headed by their name, with their tasks in it.

Step 13

To see the tasks as a Gantt chart, click Gantt, the last button in the same bar. The Gantt chart opens.

Step 14

The Gantt chart shows the tasks against time. The list of tasks, with each one's assignee, is on the left, and a time scale runs along the top. Each task is a bar: the position and length of the bar show the task's start date, duration and end date. At a glance, you can see: - what the tasks are; - when each one begins and ends; - how long each one is scheduled to last; - where tasks overlap with each other, and by how much; - the start and end date of the whole project.