Creating a Project

Now that we have some familiar people in the system, we can start creating a mini-project.

Creating the project

The first step is to create the overall project:
  1. On the main screen, press Add button.
  2. You will now see a small dialog that lets you select what type of entry to add.
  3. In the drop-down, select "Project (Project)", then press OK.

You should now see a dialog that lets you fill in details for the project.

  1. Enter 70 into the Priority field (priority values are between 0 and 100).
  2. Leave the Duration field blank (once you start the work breakdown, the system will fill this in for you).
  3. Leave the Complete field at 0%.
  4. Enter the name you want to give to the project into the Project field.
  5. Enter "yesterday" in the Start Date field.
  6. Use the ">" symbol on the left of the End Date field to pick a finish date from the calendar browser (make it a couple of weeks in the future).
  7. Now you are done.   Press OK.

You should be able to see your new project in the list of projects.   Click on it, and you should be able see the details you just entered on the left side of the screen.

Adding a task

Now, we can start breaking down the project...   Make sure you have clicked on your project in the list of projects in the main screen and make sure you are on the Tree View (the Treetab).

  1. On the toolbar, press the New
          Child button (to create a new child).
  2. You should see the dialog that lets you select what type of task to add.   Select the "Task (Task)" option and press OK.
  3. You should now be able to see a dialog that lets you fill in the task details.
  4. Leave Duration as it is (because we are going to break this down further).
  5. Leave Start Date, Due Date and Complete as they are.
  6. Fill in the task description in the Task field - We might call this "Setup" (we are going to set up the project).
  7. Press OK.

You should now be able to see the new task underneath your project, titled "Setup (...)".

Breaking down the task

We will break the Setup task down further...   We will add tasks for "Project Plan", "Customer Meetings" and "Quotation".   Click on the Setup task in the projects list.

  1. Use the New Child button again (this time for the "Project Plan" task).
  2. Fill in "10:00" in the Duration field (which means 10 hours).
  3. Fill in "Project Plan" in the Task field.
  4. Press OK.

You should now be able to see the Project Plan task under the Setup task.   You can also see that both the project and the Setup tasks have 10:00 in the duration column (this is the duration for the whole project).
Make sure you have clicked on the Setup task again.

  1. Use the New Child button again (this time for the "Customer Meetings" task).
  2. Fill in "5:00" in the Duration field (which means 5 hours).
  3. Fill in "Customer Meetings" in the Task field.
  4. Press OK.

Click on the Setup task again.

  1. Use the New Child button again (this time for the "Quotation" task).
  2. Fill in "3:00" in the Duration field (which means 5 hours).
  3. Fill in "Customer Meetings" in the Task field.
  4. Press OK.

Now, the Setup task and the overall project should have a total of 18 hours.

Hopefully you should be getting the hang of breaking down a project.   Rather than finishing off the whole project, we will show you how to allocate different tasks to different people.

Next: Assigning Tasks