What are Tasks in Function Point?

By Function Point

Read time: 5 minutes

In your Function Point agency software, tasks are your calls to action. They’re a great way to give team members things to work on, or a selected group of team members a collaborative item to work on together. Tasks can be organized within a Schedule, be stand-alone to-do items on a Job, or act as a personal to-do list.

Job-related tasks are time-trackable and can be associated up to your service buckets to be billed out accordingly. Tasks that are part of a Schedule, can be marked as a predecessor or dependent of other Tasks within the same Schedule. And tasks on Schedules can also be easily viewed as a Gantt.

To learn the difference between a Task and a Service, please review our support article: Tasks vs Services in FP.

How Tasks Improve Your Workflow

Tasks break down the estimated hours for a job into detailed work that needs to get done. They’re assigned to one or more staff to complete, and typically have a start and end date.

Tasks are the individual pieces of a puzzle. When a team member receives a task, they know what needs to be done, how much time they have, and when it’s due. They work on their assignment, putting the puzzle piece in its correct place. When one task is done, they move on to the next; and when all the tasks are complete, the project is finished. Because all the guesswork is gone (each team member knows which piece of the puzzle they’re working on at all times) your workflow becomes more efficient and projects are completed quickly.

Sounds Great! Where can Tasks be created?

1. From the Dashboard

On the Tasks/To-Dos Dashboard tile, click the Quick Task button.

Enter any information you deem important and click Submit. Or, click Show More to see additional fields, including those to associate this task with active work, making it time-trackable and possibly billable.

2. Ad Hoc – From the Job or Board

From a Job Details page, click the Add New menu, and choose Add Task.

From a Job Board, click New Task.

Aim to include information that will help the assignee – including start and due dates, and estimated hours to complete. It is also advisable to select a service bucket, so that tracked time will be probably stored and allocated.

3. Add a Schedule to a Job

From any Job page, choose the Add New menu, and click Add Schedule.

The system will pre-pick the option to use the structure of the Estimate as the basis for the structure of the Schedule. However, if you have created Schedule Templates, they will be available for use from the drop-down icon. You can also choose to adjust the Schedule Name, Description, and member of the team to Manage.

Click Submit when ready.

The content from the Estimate has come over for us. Click anywhere into the now created Schedule to easily inline edit any information, and break down chunks of time into smaller calls to action for different members of your team. From this page, you can also readily copy any group of tasks or individual tasks.

Looks easy enough. But can I assign multiple staff to one task?

Yes! Shared Tasks allow you to create one Task with multiple staff assigned to it. They save you time while offering an easy way to track billable hours. And like any other Task, they are reflected in your Resource Allocation, are time trackable, can have predecessors and dependencies, and are visible on the Tasks/To-Dos Dashboard tile.

Add a Shared Task to a Job

Creating a shared task is just like creating a regular one. The only difference is that you change the “type” to “shared task”. This allows you to select multiple assignees.

Required fields are marked in blue. Recommended fields to fill in include:
1. Give the Task a name and description. Provide as much detail as needed so the assignee(s) know what’s expected of them.
2. Change Type to “Shared Task”.
3. Choose the Service bucket to which time tracked to this Task should be stored.
4. Choose start and due dates and times as applicable.
5. Begin typing a name, or simply press your spacebar to see a list of your staff members, organized by role. Pick a role to populate the Assigned To field with everyone under that role, or just select different people under different roles as you see fit.
6. Choose the Task Status. Make the Task “Assigned” if you want it to appear on staff Dashboards, and for staff to be aware that this Task is on their plate.
7. Enter the number of hours per staff member for this Task. Here I’ve inputted 2, and have 3 staff on the Task, so the system is showing a 6 hour total.