Provisioning new projects

Here are a few feature requests that would make it 1000x easier to provision a new project:

1. Copy assignments
When a project is copied, copy the project team AND the tasks they are assigned to
Alternatively, ASK whether assignments should be copied
Currently, on a 25 task project, I have to manually go into each task and assign it. Not fun.
2. Roll up estimates by tasks
Pretty much 100% of the projects I've ever worked with - the customer wants to know how the work is
progressing - by task and milestone. (NOT by "work type").
a. Automatically create an estimated work by program table from the estimated level of effort I put in
when I create tasks.
b. Automatically populate the overall project cost estimate from the total of the estimated tasks
c. Either dump the curent estimated work by work type OR at least give those of us who work in a more
standard way the option of seeing the estimates by task and by milestone - in addition to by work type

Sample use case -

Just completed copying a 25 task Program launch. About 80% of the work is done by the instructional designer who does 20 of the tasks. 15% by the project manager who does 3 of the tasks, and 5% by a sysadmin who does two of the tasks.

The estimated work by work type is fairly useless - it simply says that the Id does a lot of work which is undifferentiated. I cannot use this information with my customer.

I CAN use the estimated/actual work by task, but then it doesn't roll up into the milestone or project level.

(of course, it would also be great if there were a way of marking a task's progress independently from marking the amount of effort, since the two are usually not the same - hence the term "slippage" in project mgt. All the progress indicators mark a percent complete by the total estimated time v. the time actually spent - both by task and by project. When we have our project status meetings, we cannot use the data in intervals - the project manager needs to give us a verbal that's like:

Well on task 1 we worked 3 hours and it looks like it isn't complete because the estimate is for 8 hours, but it's actually done.

On task 5 we have invested 25 hours and are probably only 50% done, and that's really bad because it was estimated at an 8 hour task - so we have a real problem here.

What's needed - and again a fairly standard project management type thing - is a way to mark the percent complete that a task actually is.

Thanks for listening.

When editing a task there is a field called "estimate". This can be used to track task estimates against actual hours tracked against the task. The project activity report factors in task estimates, so you can evaluate the over and under on each task and project. Even by milestone.

Meanwhile, we'll consider your other ideas. Please understand that making the app 1,000 times easier for one or two users will likely alienate an exponential and inverse number of regular users by adding what they might view as clutter to the interface.

We will continue to build Intervals into the easy-to-use and powerful project and task management application that it has become, and will strive to incorporate our customers ideas. Thanks for your thoughts on this subject.

njbrit -

1. Simple answer - you can't. We've struggled with this from the beginning.

I don't think this is the way that the manufacturers use the product in their business.

The idea of the work type estimates is to piece together an overall estimate before the project actually begins. In the future, this may evolve into an estimating tool for generating proposals inside Intervals. Once the work type estimate is completed, the hourly and monetary budgets are used to keep track of overall project and task progress. The goal is to slice up the project into tasks that when combined equal the same amount of work in the estimate. It's a checks and balances method of keeping a project under budget, or at least being able to know when and why the project went over budget. Hope this helps.

There are a few ways to get at the task estimates:

1. Task List - On the task list if you filter for an individual project the estimates will total up on the listing. Selecting “include closed tasks” at the top of the listing will include all tasks for the project.
2. Project Estimated vs. Actual - If you navigate into a project and then click on estimated vs. actual there is a link to toggle task estimates and project estimates.
3. Project Activity Report - In the reporting section if you run a project activity report and select “by task” in the summary drop down the bottom half of the report will include all tasks and their estimated time. This report can also be run "by milestone" as well.
4. Project Landscape Report - In the reporting section if you run the project landscape report and click on the time tab after the report is generated the total task estimates are included.

On of those might do the trick.