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TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 1
PERSONAL TASK-PRO
QUICK USERS GUIDE
INTRODUCTION
TASK-PRO is a PC program that allows the user to track, prioritize,
sort and report on tasks and resources. TASK-PRO was specifically
designed with the needs of middle management in mind. As such,
more emphasis is placed on the organization, representation and
status of tasks under way than on the interrelationships between
tasks. TASK-PRO is general purpose in that it allows the user to
track virtually any type of activity, from work-in-progress to tel-
ephone inquiries to trouble reports.
PERSONAL TASK-PRO maintains all tasks in the folder named 'SYSTEM'.
PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO allows the user to mantain any number of task
folders. These folders manifest themselves in the TASK-PRO DOS
directory as '.TSK' files. PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO allows tasks to
be transferred between folders and between computer systems. The
user is allowed to record detailed information for each task, and
is provided with the ability to also enter a free text memo giving
a detailed description of those tasks which require such a descrip-
tion. Within a folder tasks may be sorted by priority, the name of
the person assigned to the task, the deadline assigned to the task,
the date the task was entered, the task start date or the systems
affected by the task. A flashing red indication is provided for
all tasks which have exceeded their deadlines.
PERSONAL TASK-PRO maintains an availability calendar for the user
which allows the user to record weekends, holidays, vacation time,
etc..., as well as scheduled work hours. PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO
maintains a complete database of resources, along with an individ-
ual availability calendar for each resource indicating time avail-
able for work on tasks. The availability calendar for each resource
takes the form of an actual on-screen multi-year calendar with
which the user can interact to indicate partial work days, holi-
days, vacations, trips, training time, weekends and other special
events. Information from these calendars is utilized in the
production of the Resource Allocation report (PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO
only), which indicates on a resource-by-resource basis how effec-
tively available time is being utilized.
TASK-PRO can also produce detailed, descriptive timeslips for empl-
oyees, and PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO provides a special Timeslip Inter-
face which can be used to easily enter timeslip information (hours
worked) into the TASK-PRO database.
PERSONAL TASK-PRO was designed for the home user or professional
worker who has a need to track tasks in progress. PROFESSIONAL
TASK-PRO was designed to target the needs from middle management on
down in the corporate world. The IMPORT and EXPORT capabilities
allow an entire organization to use TASK-PRO effectively through
the dessemination of export folders.
TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 2
TASK-PRO incorporates a state-of-the-art keyboard and/or mouse
interface which makes excellent use of color, sound, text windows
and context-sensitive hypertext help at the touch of the F1 key or
the click of the mouse button.
1.0 Required Equipment
TASK-PRO runs on IBM PC's and compatables with 256k of system
memory and CGA, EGA or VGA graphics adaptors. TASK-PRO will util-
ize a system mouse if one is present and the mouse device driver
has been installed. TASK-PRO may work with other equipment config-
urations.
2.0 INSTALLATION
The distribution diskette contains PERSONAL TASK-PRO along with
all associated help, documentation and sample database files.
Create a dedicated directory for TASK-PRO (we recommend 'C:\TASK')
and copy these files finto that directory. You may then run TASK-
PRO, as described in this document, and practice with the sample
data provided. When you are satisfied with your expertise you may
delete every file except PTASK.EXE, TSK.HLP and this README file
and begin using TASK-PRO for real.
Current users of TASK-PRO 2.2 and 2.3 may upgrade to TASK-PRO 2.4
or 2.5 by performing the following steps:
o Back up the contents of your current TASK-PRO directory
to a floppy disk (just in case).
o Copy the files UPGR2325.EXE, PTASK.EXE, TSK.HLP and
README.PER from the supplied floppy to your current
TASK-PRO directory.
o Run UPGR2325 from within your old TASK-PRO directory (this
program updates the structure of your existing task files).
Current users of TASK-PRO 2.4 and 2.5 may upgrade to TASK-PRO 2.4a
or 2.5a (which incorporated disk caching) by performing the following
steps:
o Back up the contents of your current TASK-PRO directory
to a floppy disk (just in case).
o From within you TASK-PRO directory run the supplied program
UPGR25A (without arguments).
o Your database should now be upgraded to the 2.4a/2.5a format.
TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 3
3.0 RUNNING AND QUITTING TASK-PRO
To run TASK-PRO simply enter 'PTASK -C' for a color system or
'PTASK -M' for a monochrome system from the DOS prompt. The user
will then be presented with the main menu screen of TASK-PRO. You
may also enter a second command line switch '-NOMOUSE' if you do
not want TASK-PRO to take advantage of a mouse installed on your
system.
To quit TASK-PRO and return to DOS simply select the Quit option
from the TASK-PRO main menu.
4.0 GETTING HELP SCREENS
You can always get a help screen describing the currently high-
lighted menu option by depressing the F1 key or by clicking the
mouse button while the mouse cursor is positioned over a help
prompt. This help text is completely context-sensitive, and allows
you to jump to the help screens for related topics by highlighting
the text associated with the topics within the help window (through
use of the arrow keys of the numeric keypad) and depressing the
ENTER key or by positioning the mouse cursor over the keyword and
clicking the left mouse button. You may exit the help system and
return to TASK-PRO by depressing the ESC key, or by clicking the
right mouse button (which is always identical to depressing the ESC
key).
5.0 THE MENU SYSTEM
The TASK-PRO main menu is the bar menu that appears across the top
of the screen at all times that TASK-PRO is running. You may move
between the items of this menu with the left and right cursor con-
trol keys, and any associated pull-down menus will automatically
appear. You may also move between main menu items by depressing
the hot key for the item (highlighted in yellow) while holding down
the ALT key (this is simply a shortcut for the experienced user).
If you are not within a data entry window or a pop-up menu then you
may also move directly to a main menu option by positioning the
mouse cursor over the main menu choice and clicking the left mouse
button. In general the mouse may be used to select any option in
any menu within TASK-PRO, and clicking the right mouse button will
exit all but the main menu level.
For main menu options that do not have an associated pull-down menu
the option is activated by depressing the ENTER key once the option
is highlighted. If such an option has been selected with the short-
cut ALT-hotkey keystroke then the keystroke must be entered a sec-
ond time (or optionally the ENTER key must be depressed) to act-
ivate the option.
For main menu options that have pull-down sub-menus, the sub-menu
option is activated by highlighting the desired option with the up
TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 4
and down cursor control keys and depressing the ENTER key. Alter-
natively the option may be activated by hitting the highlighted hot
key in the sub-menu (without depressing the ALT key).
Help information about any sub-menu option may be obtained by high-
lighting the option and depressing the F1 key.
6.0 DATA ENTRY WINDOWS
Data entry windows allow the user to enter data into the TASK-PRO
system. The user may move between fields by positioning the mouse
cursor on the desired field and clicking the left mouse button. To
operate without a mouse the up and down cursor control keys, as
well as the TAB key, allow the user to move between data entry
fields. Depressing the CONTROL key while hitting the left and
right cursor control keys will also move one field to the right or
left where appropriate.
The left and right cursor control keys allow the user to move
within the field. The insert key toggles text entry between insert
and overstrike mode. The delete key deletes characters under the
cursor. The return key successfully ends the data entry into the
form and the ESC key aborts the data entry process. Help for any
field is available by depressing the F1 key while the cursor is
positioned within the field.
7.0 The FOLDERS menu option
The FOLDERS menu option has an associated pull-down sub-menu which
offers the options BROWSE, DEFAULTS, RE-INDEX and QUIT.
Selecting BROWSE brings up the window on the lower portion of the
display which allows the user to view and modify tasks in the cur-
rently opened task folder. See Section 8.0 for a more detailed
description of this option.
Selecting DEFAULTS brings up a data entry window in which the user
can pre-fill various fields that will usually be the same when a
new task is being added to the currently opened folder. These
fields will then be pre-filled with this data whenever a new task
is added. Any entry into the DATE ENTERED field will be ignored
when a new task is added, however, as the computer's system date
is entered into this field each time a task is added.
Selecting the RE-INDEX option of the folders pull-down menu allows
TASK-PRO to rebuild all pointers and indexes for the currently
opened task folder. Before the operation proceeds the user is
queried by TASK-PRO to ascertain that the operation is intentional
(for a large task database this operation may take significant
time).
Selecting the QUIT option of the FOLDER pull-down menu causes TASK-
PRO to terminate immediately and return the user to DOS.
TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 5
8.0 The BROWSE FOLDER menu option
Selecting the BROWSE option from the TASK-PRO FOLDER menu brings up
a formatted list of all tasks in for folder in the lower portion of
the display. The user may use the up and down cursor control keys
to highlight the various tasks. This window scrolls up and down as
necessary to accommodate a large number of tasks.
One important feature of the BROWSE window to be aware of is the
ability to edit a memo for the highlighted task by depressing the
F10 key. Keep in mind that the F1 key will provide you with de-
tailed context-sensitive help at all times.
If you are using a mouse you may highlight a task by simply click-
ing the mouse button with the mouse cursor positioned on the task
of interest. Clicking on a task within the first five columns of
the display also has the affect of toggling the status of the tag
for that task, thereby providing an extremely convenient means of
tagging tasks. Clicking on a task that is already highlighted
causes the task detail window to be brought up, allowing you to
view and modify task information.
The command keystrokes available from within the browse window are:
'T' - Tag/Untag Highlighted Task
INS or '+' - Add a New Task
DEL or '-' - Delete the Highlighted Task
CTL F5 - Begin Searching Database for String Match
F5 - Continue Search Started with CTL F5
CTL K - Auxilliary Keystrokes
CTL S - Re-Sort
CTL T - * Tag all tasks
CTL F - Change the task display format
CTL P - * Produce A Report/Listing
CTL U - * Untag all tasks
CTL C - * Close all tagged tasks
CTL Y - * Delete All Tagged Tasks
Up Arrow - Highlight Next Task Line
Down Arrow - Highlight Prev Task Line
PgUp - Scroll Up One Page
PgDn - Scroll Down One Page
Home - Go to First Task In List
End - Go to End of List
F10 - Edit Memo for Highlighted Task
Enter - View and Edit the Highlighted Task
ESC - Return to Task-Pro Main Menu
* - Only available with PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO
For mouse users, many of these capabilities are available by click-
ing the left mouse button with the mouse cursor positioned on any
of the keywords appearing on the bottom of the screen.
TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 6
9.0 The CALENDAR Main Menu Option
The CALENDAR option of the TASK-PRO main menu has a pull-down sub-
menu with two associated options. These options are to BROWSE the
personal availability calendar or to PURGE the personal availabil-
ity calendar.
Selecting the BROWSE option of the pull-down menu results in the
personal availability calendar appearing on-screen. The user may
interact with the calendar as described in section 9.1 below. Sel-
ecting the PURGE option of the menu results in all calendars for
previous years being deleted. This simply reduces disk space usage
and allows the personal calendar to come up in the current year.
9.1 Working with Calendars
The TASK-PRO calendar system allows the user to interact with an
on-screen calendar to indicate hours available for performing
tasks. This information is ultimately used to produce the RESOURCE
ALLOCATION REPORT (PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO only), which indicates the
degree of loading imposed by task assignments for each resource.
In addition to recognizing command keystrokes, the calendar inter-
face allows the user to manipulate calendars with the mouse. The
user may click on the text icons along the bottom of the screen to
move from month to month, from year to year, or to go directly to
a specific month. Additionally the user may click the left mouse
button while the mouse cursor is positioned over a particular day
and initiate the entry of a new hours available for that day.
Clicking the right mouse button exits the calendar and returns the
user to the previous window.
The following command keystrokes are recognized by the calendar
system:
ESC - Exit Calendar System.
Arrows - Move highlighted area around calendar.
PgUp - Go To Previous Month.
PgDn - Go To Next Month.
CTL PgUp - Go To Previous Year.
CTL PgDn - Go To Next Year.
'G' - Bring Up Month Selection Menu.
'H' - Set Highlighted day to HOLIDAY.
'V' - Set Highlighted day to VACATION.
'T' - Set Highlighted day to TRIP.
'R' - Set Highlighted day to TRAINING.
'O' - Set Highlighted day to OTHER.
'W' - Set Highlighted day to WEEKEND.
ENTER - Modify number of hours available for
currently highlighted day (or simply
begin entering the number).
TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 7
10.0 The REPORTS Main Menu Option
The REPORTS option of the TASK-PRO main menu has a pull-down sub-
menu with a list of the available reports. These reports are the
CRITICAL DATES report, the HOURS WORKED report, the ABBREVIATED
report, the FULL PAGE report, the TIMESLIPS printout and the
ALLOCATION report.
On the sub-menu the legend '(f)' indicates a report to be a 'folder
report', which only produces information pertinent to the currently
opened task folder, and the legend '(s)' indicates a report to be a
'system report', which represents data acquired from all task
folders.
Selecting a 'folder report' will cause the user to be subsequently
prompted for a sorting order and a task selection criteria within
additional pop-up menus, and then the report will be sent to the
system printer. Depressing the ESC key during this process will
cancel the report and return the user to the TASK-PRO main menu.
All 'folder reports', when sorted by the name of the person assign-
ed to perform the task, will automatically insert page breaks when-
ever the name changes. This is a handy method of producing status
reports for handout to individual employees.
The full page report contains all information on each task, incl-
uding the contents of the memo. This report is actually a series
of work orders.
The TIMESLIP printout is designed such that employees may fill in
the hours worked on a project periodically for recording in the
TASK-PRO database. PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO provides a handy command
line interface ideal for allowing a secretary to enter updates for
hours worked.
The ALLOCATION report indicates, given availability as indicated in
the personal availability calendar as well as current task assign-
ments and the budget, start date and deadline associated with each,
the percentage of available time being consumed throughout the
entire period for which tasks have been defined. This is an excel-
lent means of documenting an overallocated condition as well as a
tool for distributing the workload.
11.0 The SETUP Main Menu Option
The SETUP option of the TASK-PRO main menu allows you to customize
TASK-PRO to meet your needs and preferences. The options available
on the associated pulldown menu are DISP MODE, SORTING and PRINTER.
Selecting the DISP MODE option evokes a pop-up menu which allows
you to select a default format for the individual task lines in
the browse window.
TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 8
Selecting the SORTING options evokes a pop-up menu which allows you
to select a default sorting format for the tasks within the browse
menu.
Selecting the PRINTER option evokes a pop-up menu which allows you
to configure TASK-PRO for the set of control codes to send to your
printer as reports are being printed. Selecting the PROPRINTER
option will configure TASK-PRO to send font selection control seq-
uences to the printer following IBM PROPRINTER conventions.
Selecting the EPSON option will configure TASK-PRO to send font se-
lection control sequences to the printer following EPSON conven-
tions. Selecting the NULL option will cause TASK-PRO to use what-
ever fonts are currently set on the printer with no control
sequences being passed. Selecting the CUSTOMIZE option will bring
up a data entry window in which the user can specify exactly the
hexadecimal escape sequences to be used to select compressed and
normal fonts. Depressing F1 from within this window will provide
detailed information on this data entry with examples.
Once you have set any TASK-PRO configuration, it will be in force
until it is specifically changed, even if you quit TASK-PRO, return
to DOS, and run TASK-PRO at some time in the future.
12.0 The INFO Main Menu Option
Selecting the INFO option from the TASK-PRO main menu brings up a
hypertext system containing product information as well as infor-
mation about technical support, product ordering, and availability
of other software products and services.
13.0 The TASK-PRO Timeslip Interface
This option is only available on PROFESSIONAL TASK-PRO.
The TASK-PRO Timeslip Interface allows for the quick and easy entry
of updates to the HOURS WORKED field for any task without going
into the user interface of TASK-PRO. This is achieved through a
command prompt which understands the following commands:
FOLDER <name of task folder to update>
ADD <id of task for which hours worked are to be added>
SUB <id of task for which hours worked are to be subtracted>
SET <id of task for which hours worked are to be set>
DIR
HELP
QUIT
(cont'd)
TASK-PRO Business Technologies Page 9
The FOLDER command sets the current folder for work. The ADD
command adds hours to a task, the SUB command subtracts hours from
a task, the SET command sets the number of hours worked on a task,
the DIR command produces a listing of all available task folders,
the HELP command produces a help message and the QUIT command
returns the user to DOS.
To bring up the timeslip interface simply enter 'TASKPRO -U' from
the DOS prompt. The following dialog with the timeslip interface
would add 5 hours to the hours worked field of task 7 in the folder
SYSTEM and set the hours worked field of task 3 in the folder TESTS
to a value of 50.
->FOLDER SYSTEM
SYSTEM-> ADD 7 5
SYSTEM-> FOLDER TESTS
TESTS-> SET 3 50
TESTS-> QUIT
Note that the command prompt contains the name of the currently
opened folder.