Task Management Calendar

Updated in 8.4

The Task Management Calendar is a global calendar that enables you to browse several personal work calendars for a group of technicians simultaneously and see the Tasks or Work Orders assigned to them. You can always view the work schedules of your teammates, know who is in charge of what, when deadlines are due, who is overloaded, and who is available to take on more work.

To access the Task Management Calendar, select either Service Desk > Task Management Calendar in the Sidebar or Go > Task Management Calendar from the main menu. You can view the calendar information by day, by week, or by month. For details, see Changing Calendar views. You can also choose what type of information you want to browse: Project Tasks or Work Orders. To switch between those views, use the corresponding options below the mini-calendar in the top-right corner of the window.

NOTE: To refresh the calendar view, press F5.

Choosing the technicians whose schedules the calendar displays

The Task Management Calendar displays parallel horizontal time lines for all technicians you want to track. Instead of choosing particular technicians, you can choose one or more groups of technicians, and the calendar would display time lines for all members of the selected groups. You can also combine these two methods: select several technicians and one or more groups of technicians.

• To specify technicians for the calendar:

  1. To expand or collapse the Assignee or Group panes, in the right side bar under the mini-calendar, click Assignee or Group, respectively. These panes must be expanded if you want to specify technicians.

  2. Select the check boxes in either or both of the Assignee and Group panes. To choose all technicians, select the <All> check box under Assignee. Clearing the <All> check box will clear all other check boxes in the pane.

  NOTE: The Group pane displays only technician groups.

• To view the details of a technician:

  • Click the Person name hyperlink to bring up the Person details window.

Time lines are sorted alphabetically by the technician's Full Name. When there are many technicians selected, use the scroll bar to scroll through their schedules. You can zoom in to show fewer resources or out to show more resources by clicking the minus and plus buttons in the scroll bar.

Managing personal events for technicians

Technicians have personal events such as vacations, training days, meetings, and other exceptions to their standard working time, specified using the Work Calendar tab of their Person details window. The Task Management Calendar displays all personal events for the selected technicians, so you can quickly visualize when personal events overlap the Work Order flow and reschedule the Work Order or the event before it's too late.

You can manage personal events right from the calendar as follows:

• To view the details of an event:

  • Rest the pointer on the event to display its details. The ScreenTip displays the event name, its dates description.

• To reschedule a personal event:

  1. Drag the start or end border to the new position. You can also drag events between dates within the calendar area or to a particular date in the mini-calendar in the top-right corner.

  2. Click Save on the calendar's Module menu to save your changes in the database.

  NOTE: To change other event details (for example, add a new description), double-click the event and make your changes using the [Personal Event Category] window.

• To add a personal event for a technician:

  1. Select the cell that you want to bind with a new personal event and click New > [Personal Event Category] on the Module menu. Alternatively, right-click the cell, and then click New > [Personal Event Category]. You can also select a range of cells to immediately specify the event's start and end date and time. The [Personal Event Category] window opens.

  NOTE: The list of personal event categories is configured by your Alloy Navigator administrator. For details, see Managing personal event categories.

  2. Specify the event details and click OK. A new event bar appears in the calendar.

• To delete a personal event:

  • Select the event and click the Delete button on the Module menu. Alternatively, right-click the event, and then click Delete Selected Item(s).

Filtering Work Orders in the calendar

The Task Management Calendar displays Work Orders assigned to the selected technicians. Work Orders are shown as bars from their Scheduled Start Date (or Start Date, if specified) to Scheduled End Date (or End Date, if specified). You can filter the Work Orders in the Task Management Calendar to display only those that belong to one or more particular Types, Categories, Statuses, or Projects.

• To filter Work Orders:

  • Expand the corresponding pane in the right side bar and select the appropriate check boxes. You can combine any properties as you want.

  • Type shows Work Orders of the selected types.

  • Category shows Work Orders of the selected categories.

  • Status shows Work Orders in the selected lifecycle phases, i.e. having the selected Status values.

  • Project shows Work Orders that belong to the selected Projects.

  NOTE: The most of panes have the <Unassigned> check box, which allows you to decide whether the calendar would display Work Orders having an empty value in the corresponding field.

• To remove filtering:

  • To remove filtering by a particular Work Orders field, select the <All> check box in the corresponding pane. This will select all other check boxes in that pane, and the calendar will show Work Orders having any value in that field.

  NOTE: Clearing the <All> check box will clear all other check boxes in the pane. Make sure that you have selected some values in each of the Type, Category, Status, and Project panes. Otherwise, your calendar will be empty.

Configuration panes with filters will show the asterisk in their title bars.

Viewing and rescheduling Work Orders

The Task Management Calendar shows Work Order flow from their Scheduled Start Date to Scheduled End Date and enables you to reschedule or re-assign them before the work actually begins.

• To view the details of a Work Order:

  • Point to the Work Order to display its status, start and end date and time. If you want to view more details, such as the priority and description, double-click the Work Order to bring up the Work Order window.

• To reschedule or reassign a Work Order:

  1. Drag the start or end border to the new position. You can also drag Work Orders between dates within the calendar area or to a particular date in the mini-calendar in the top-right corner.

     If you want to reassign a Work Order, just drag it to another technician.

  2. Click Save on the calendar's Module menu to save your changes in the database.

As soon as the work begins, a Work Order gets the Start Date value, and the calendar displays that Start Date instead of the Scheduled Start Date. When the Work Order is completed, the technician specifies the Completed Date value, and the calendar displays that Completed Date instead of the Scheduled End Date.

The Start Date and Completed Date are fixed, and you cannot "move" them. Unlike Work Orders with flexible scheduled dates, Work Orders with fixed dates are marked with purple borders .

Related Information:

Calendar

Work Calendar tab

Related information for Administrators:

Setting up work calendars

Managing personal event categories