Sometimes you may wish to delegate one or more of the tasks in your task list to another user or users, or perhaps to someone outside of your organisation. Once delegated, you may wish to track the progress of the task from your own task list. OfficeTalk lets you do this in the following way:
Create the task by entering it into your task list in the normal way.
Click the right mouse button on the task and select Assign Task… from the context menu. The Choose Recipient dialog box is displayed.
· Select one or more local or remote users from the list of available recipients and press the Add… button. Alternatively, or in addition, double click on the Contacts entry and select, from the address book, a contact, representing someone outside of your organisation. When the required persons are listed in the Selected Recipients list, press OK on the Choose Recipient dialog box.
When you press OK on the Choose Recipient dialog box, OfficeTalk will show the Task Assignment Instructions dialog box. This is your opportunity to explain to the recipients of your task, exactly what you want them to do. Specify your instructions or, otherwise, leave this dialog box blank and press OK.
When you press OK, your task assignment will be sent, via e-mail, to the selected recipients. If you assigned the task to one or more OfficeTalk users then they will receive their task via OfficeTalk mail. On reading their task assignment e-mail message, a task will be added to their task list. When they change the percentage done for their assigned task, this will be reflected in the percentage done of your original task. Similarly, if you sent the task to a person outside of your organisation, that person will receive the task assignment via Internet mail. They will be instructed to reply to the message on a periodic basis, updating you with its progress. OfficeTalk will automatically extract this information, on receiving their reply from the Internet, and will update the completion status of your task. In this way, you can track and fully monitor the progress of all assigned tasks.