Tasks

Overview

A project task is a specific, measurable, and manageable unit of work that needs to be completed as part of a larger project. Tasks are the building blocks of a project plan and contribute to the achievement of project objectives and milestones. Each task typically has a defined start and end date, assigned resources, and dependencies on other tasks.

• Task Description: Clearly defines the nature of the work to be performed. It should be specific, concise, and understandable by the team members responsible for completing the task.
• Task Duration: Specifies the amount of time required to complete the task. This can be measured in hours, days, or other relevant units of time.
• Start and End Dates: Indicates when the task is scheduled to begin and end. This information is crucial for creating a project timeline and managing dependencies between tasks.
• Assigned Resources: Identifies the individuals or teams responsible for executing the task. This ensures accountability and clarity regarding who is responsible for the successful completion of the work.
• Dependencies: Outlines any relationships or dependencies between tasks. Some tasks may need to be completed before others can start, and understanding these relationships is vital for effective project scheduling.

Usage in Altus

Tasks can be tracked in the following places in Altus:

• Projects
• Altus Work

Views

There are two types of views for Change Requests in Altus:

• User Views: These views show all items assigned to the current user. In addition, users with higher levels of access can view items across the portfolio.
• Object Views: These filter items based on which portfolio, program, or project they belong to automatically.

User Views

View	Columns	Filters
My Active Project Tasks	Name; Project; Start; Finish; Percent Complete; Calculated Effort Remaining (Hours)	Percent Complete < 100 AND Resource Assignments (Task) Does not contain Data
All Active Tasks	Name; Project; Start; Finish; Percent Complete; Calculated Effort Remaining (Hours)	Percent Complete < 100
All Project Tasks	Name; Project; Start; Finish; Percent Complete; Calculated Effort Remaining (Hours)	None

Incomplete Tasks with No Effort

Incomplete tasks with no effort are displayed in My Active Project Tasks and All Active Project Tasks - This provides the project user and project executive with visibility of these so that they can be updated (where applicable). See below for an example of what this looks like when present in Altus:

Object Views

These show items filtered within the context of the object. For example, the project Tasks view below only shows Tasks for the current project.

Project

Show/Hide Columns

Altus' scheduling component provides the ability for users to select which columns they wish to see in the tasks tab. This can be updated as follows:

Resources

Resources can be assigned to tasks in the tasks tab for the native Altus scheduler.

Note: Only active resources can be assigned to tasks. If the Bookable Resources is inactive, they won't appear in the assigned to drop-down.

If a task has been assigned to an existing resource that has since been made inactive, they will still appear in the drop-down. However, they cannot be assigned to other tasks.

Baselining

Baseline Overview

Taking baselines of schedule data is a fundamental of project management. Altus enables users in the correct security group to set baselines within Altus (so that it can be easily reported on). This provides project managers and other users with the following key benefits:

• Governance and Performance Monitoring: With a baseline in place, PMs can compare actual progress against the agreed baseline. This enables them to identify any deviations or variances early on, allowing for timely corrective actions to keep the project on track
• Communication and stakeholder engagement: The baseline serves as a communication tool for stakeholders, ensuring everyone is aligned on project goals, expectations, and progress. It fosters transparency and trust among team members, clients, sponsors, and other stakeholders
• Decision Making: Having a baseline provides a basis for informed decision-making throughout the project. When faced with changes or challenges, PMs can refer back to the baseline to evaluate the impact on scope and schedule making well-informed decisions to address issues effectively
• Historical data: We currently allow up to 20 historical baselines per project and these data are available in the data model. These can be used to improve planning and execution going forward for the project itself and even for future projects

For information on how to configure the Baseline feature click here.

Creating a Baseline

When you create a Baseline, the following fields will be saved. Some are entered at the time of Baseline creation others are calculated based on Task information.

Baseline Fields

Display Name	Field Type	Description
Name	Single line of text	The Name of the Baseline.
Description	Multiple lines of text	Description of the Baseline.
Project	Lookup (Project)	This field contains a lookup reference to the Project that the baseline has been created for.
Collection Status	Multiple lines of text	Contains a log of output from the Baseline creation process.
Is Complete	Yes/No	Indicates whether the Baseline has been completed (e.g. will switch to Yes when all Baseline data has been copied successfully).
Reportable Baseline	Yes/No	Indicates whether this is the Reportable Baseline for a Project. Each Project can have only one baseline marked as Is Reportable.
Approval Status	Choice	Field that can be used for extending the behaviour of Baselines to include an approval mechanism.

Drop-down Menu

The Baseline drop-down menu displays the following:

• The Baseline Name
• The Baseline Created Date
• Bold text and the report icon identifies the Reportable baseline
• The tick next to the Baseline shows which baseline is currently being viewed within the Task app
• The pencil icon, which is only seen by users within the roles who can create/edit/delete baselines. Clicking this icon allows you to edit some of the baseline information or delete a Baseline if you have reached the maximum of 20 baselines. The fields that can be edited are:
  • Name
  • Description
  • Is Reportable

Maintaining a Baseline

Users in the security role who can create Baselines can edit or delete a Baseline. Only the fields that were selected when the Baseline was created can be edited. These are: Name, Description and Is Reportable. To edit a Baseline, click the Pencil icon after the Baseline and it will open the Baseline edit screen

Viewing Baselines

To view the Baseline fields within the Tasks grid, select the baseline from the menu. It will now be indicated by the tick next to the Baseline name. To remove the Baseline fields from the Tasks grid, select “Hide Baselines”. When you select to show a Baseline on the grid the Baseline columns will show within the grid, which allows you to quickly compare the Baseline values versus the current task forecast values.

Viewing a Baseline: Task Fields

You can choose what columns show in your view by using the show/hide columns menu. The following Task Baseline columns can be made visible within the Tasks grid:

• Baseline Start
• Start Variance
• Baseline Finish
• Finish Variance
• Baseline Effort
• Effort Variance
• Baseline Duration
• Duration Variance

These fields are available for every Baseline created on the Project

Status Updates

The Status Update Baseline feature is still available to be used and if enabled, will continue to work on the Status Update form - and the values for baseline finish and work on the Status Update screen will be set from Status Updates. If the Status Update Baseline feature is disabled and Project Baselines are enabled, then the source for baseline finish and work on the Status Update form will be set from the Reportable Baseline for the Project.

Project Views

The Project Baseline table has been set up to store a copy of values relating to the Project that has been referenced in the Baseline. When the Baseline has been created, the Baseline server-side process will attempt to take a copy of all values currently stored in the Project table for that Project and store a copy of those values in the Project Baseline table.

Fields have been created in the Project Baseline table for each out of the box Project fields (and when the Baseline is created, fields will automatically be mapped based on the internal field names). The following fields are mapped (internal to the Baseline process) as exceptions - primarily because the field types are specific to Baselines, or are 'internal' to Dataverse and using those fields directly on the Project Baseline table did not make sense:

Project Field Display Name	Internal Name	Field Type	Project Baseline Field Display Name	Internal Name	Field Type
Sensei Project	sensei_projectId	Unique identifier	Project Id	sensei_projectId	Single line of text
Status	statecode	Choice	Project Status	sensei_projectstatecode	Single line of text
Status Reason	statuscode	Choice	Project Status Reason	sensei_projectstatuscode	Single line of text
Modified On	modifiedon	Date and Time	Project Modified On	sensei_projectmodifiedon	Date and time
Modified By	modifiedby	Lookup (User)	Project Modified By	sensei_projectmodifiedby	Lookup (User)

Reportable Baselines

Creating / tagging a Reportable Baseline

When baselines are created, the user can determine whether these are reportable or not. It is controlled by this radio control:

Deleting a Reportable Baseline

If the user wishes to delete a baseline, they can do so subject to having the appropriate permissions. If the user wishes to delete a baseline that has been marked as reportable, they will receive this warning dialog.

This won't prevent the baseline from being deleted, but provides an opportunity for the user to decide if they wish to proceed.

Viewing the Reportable Baseline

When viewing the Reportable Baseline in the task control, the "Reportable" icon will display in the legend.

Apply Timesheet Actuals to Schedule

A preview window is added to show the impact of the incoming timesheet actuals on existing scheduled tasks. This enables the project executive (project manager) to preview actuals and decide whether to apply these or not.

Baseline form

The baseline form has the following fields in which show the Reportable baseline fields:

Quick Edit

View/Edit

Columns

The following columns exists in Altus.

Columns prefixed with sensei_ are those that form part of the Altus solution.

The remaining are default dataverse fields created automatically.

Property	Value
Display Name	Project Task
Name	sensei_task
Primary Column
Description

Display Name	Name	Data type	Field Length	Customizable	Required	Searchable
Bucket	sensei_bucket	Lookup		True	False	False
Category	sensei_category	picklist		True	False	False
Created By	CreatedBy	Lookup		True	False	False
Created By (Delegate)	CreatedOnBehalfBy	Lookup		True	False	False
Due Date	sensei_duedate	Date and Time	Date Only	True	False	True
Duration (Days)	sensei_duration	Decimal	0 to 100000000000	True	False	False
Effort (Hours)	sensei_effort	Decimal	0 to 100000000000	True	False	False
Effort Completed (Hours)	sensei_effortcompleted	Decimal	0 to 100000000000	True	False	False
Effort Remaining (Hours)	sensei_effortremaining	Decimal		True	False	False
Effort Remaining (Hours)	sensei_effortremainingoverride	Decimal	0 to 100000000000	True	False	False
External Parent Task ID	sensei_externalparenttaskid	Single line of text	100	True	False	False
External Project ID	sensei_externalprojectid	Single line of text	100	True	False	False
External Task ID	sensei_externaltaskid	Single line of text	100	True	False	False
Field Lock	sensei_fieldlock	Single line of text	4000	True	False	False
Finish	sensei_taskfinish	Date and Time	Date Only	True	False	True
Finish DateTime	sensei_taskfinishdatetime	Date and Time	Date and Time	True	False	False
Form Updated	sensei_FormUpdated	Single line of text	4000	True	False	False
Hash	sensei_hash	Single line of text	4000	True	False	False
Index	sensei_index	Whole number		True	False	True
Is External	sensei_isexternal	Yes/No		True	False	False
Json Properties	sensei_json_properties	Multiple lines of text	8000	True	False	False
Last Sync Date	sensei_lastsyncdate	Date and Time	Date and Time	True	False	True
Level	sensei_level	Whole number		True	False	True
Locked	sensei_locked	Yes/No		True	False	False
Milestone	sensei_milestone	Yes/No		True	False	False
Modified By	ModifiedBy	Lookup		True	False	False
Modified By (Delegate)	ModifiedOnBehalfBy	Lookup		True	False	False
Notes	sensei_notes	Multiple lines of text	2000	True	False	False
Order	sensei_order	Whole number		True	False	True
Origin of Change	sensei_OriginofChange	Single line of text	4000	True	False	False
Owner	OwnerId	Owner		True	False	False
Owning Business Unit	OwningBusinessUnit	Lookup		True	False	False
Owning Team	OwningTeam	Lookup		True	False	False
Owning User	OwningUser	Lookup		True	False	False
Parent Task	sensei_parenttask	Lookup		True	False	False
Percent Complete	sensei_percentcomplete	Whole number		True	False	True
Percent Complete (decimal)	sensei_percentcompletedecimal	Decimal		True	False	False
Priority	sensei_priority	picklist		True	False	False
Project	sensei_project	Lookup		False	True	False
Schedule Type	sensei_scheduletype	picklist		True	True	False
Size	sensei_size	Single line of text	100	True	False	False
Sprint	sensei_sprint	Lookup		True	False	False
Start	sensei_taskstart	Date and Time	Date Only	True	False	True
Start DateTime	sensei_taskstartdatetime	Date and Time	Date and Time	True	False	False
Summary	sensei_summary	Yes/No		True	False	False
Task No.	sensei_tasknumber	Single line of text	100	True	False	False
Task Type	sensei_tasktype	picklist		True	False	False

Task Category (sensei_taskcategory)

Value	Label	Description
955000000	General
955000001	Stage
955000002	Gate

Task Priority (sensei_taskpriority)

Value	Label	Description
955000000	Urgent
955000001	Important
955000002	Medium
955000003	Low

Schedule Type (sensei_scheduletype)

Value	Label	Description
955000000	Auto
955000001	Manual

Task Type (sensei_tasktype)

Value	Label	Description
955000000	Fixed Duration
955000001	Fixed Work
955000002	Fixed Unit

Security Roles

Security Role	Create	Read	Write	Delete	Append	Append To	Assign	Share
Altus - PMO User
Altus - Portfolio Manager
Altus - Program Manager
Altus - Resource Manager
Altus - Strategy Executive
Altus - Timesheet Manager
Altus Admin User
Altus Portfolio User
Altus Project Executive
Altus Project User
Altus Strategy User

Legend

• Organisation / Global
• Business Unit / Local
• User / Basic
• None

For details see Application Security.

Dataverse Tables

Project Task	Project Task with fields

---

Related Articles

• External Execution Tools
• Project Types
• Project Sync