Task Side Panel

Overview

The Task side panel gives you instant access to task details and information, providing better context and visibility. The side panel consists of several sections that allow you to view and/or edit task information:

• Details
• Activity
• Custom
• Checklist
• Proofs
• Time & Fees
• Schedule
• Files
• History

You can expand or collapse each section individually, depending on whether it contains information relevant to your workflow. Kantata OX will remember which sections were expanded/collapsed and which section you were in the next time you open the side panel.

To access the Task side panel, click on the title of a task from nearly anywhere in Kantata OX or click the Side Panel (“   ”) icon in the Task Tracker.

Header

The header is anchored to the top of the side panel and is always visible, displaying key information such as the task type, title, status, and priority. If you access the Task side panel from an area outside of the Task Tracker, the name of the project from which the task originates is displayed at the top of the header. Click on the name to go to the project workspace.

There are navigational breadcrumbs at the top of the header showing the source task and a drop-down menu of related subtasks (if any). This allows you to quickly navigate through a group of tasks.

Use the tabs just below the header to quickly jump to the associated section. The numbers in parentheses to the right of some tabs indicate the current count of Activity posts, Checklists, Proofs, and Files associated with the task.

Details

In this section, you can write task descriptions, add tags, and classify task participants as followers or assignees depending on their roles and responsibilities.

• Description—Use this field for commenting, planning, or documenting the steps required to complete the task. You can use Kantata's markdown formatting or the toolbar below the field to add bold, italics, underline, bullet lists, numbered lists, hyperlinks, and emoji.
  Note: The Description field has a 5,000 character limit.
• Tags—Use this field to identify specific keywords or topics and facilitate searches via filter options in the global Tasks list. 
• Assignees—Use this field to assign the members for which you track time and expenses against. Each task can have multiple assignees and have the ability to change the task status.
• Followers—Use this field to add individual observers who want to monitor the progress of a task but are not responsible for completing the work. Followers on a task will receive task update notifications as if they were assigned to it. You can see the tasks you’re following by selecting Your Followed Tasks in the Tasks section of the left navigation or by filtering using the Followers column in the global Tasks list.
  Note: A user cannot be a follower if they are already an assignee on the task.

Activity

The Activity section allows you to post task updates and upload files directly to the task. This helps project participants know that an attachment is for a specific task.

Custom

This section displays all the Task Custom Fields (arranged alphanumerically) previously created by Account Administrators in Settings > Custom Fields. 

Task Custom Fields are viewable only if the field's Read Permissions are equal to (or greater than) the member's Project-level permissions. For example, a Task Custom Field with Read Permissions set to View / Edit Time & Expenses can be viewed by members with View Time and Expenses access all the way up to Project Administrator.

Read or Write Permissions are managed by Account Administrators.

Checklist

With checklists, you can organize, clarify, and keep track of the steps needed to complete a task. You can add multiple checklist items to a task that can be checked off as they are completed. 

Checklists can help reduce the total number of tasks needed to complete a project and drive consistency in task completion. For example, if the same four steps are required to complete each task in a project, add those steps as checklist items to make sure they get done.

To Dos

This section displays all associated To Dos for a task along with the To Do’s status, estimated hours, and due date. To Dos are the smaller items and details that can come up as the project progresses that can be supplementary to the project’s WBS (Work Breakdown Structure). Team members can associate a To Do to a project task to show the relation between the task and the additional items that support it.

Team members with the Edit To Dos project permission can add a new associated To Do by entering the title in the Type here to add a To Do field and then clicking the Add To Do button.

You can open a filtered Board view that displays only the To Dos associated to this task by clicking the Go to Board button in the top-right corner of the section.

To learn more, see the To Do Board Overview article.

Time & Fees
(Premier & Enterprise)

This section allows you to set the task budget, change the billing type and billable utilization target, add or edit billable hours, add time, or view time entries for the task at hand. Progress meters will increase as time is tracked, allowing you to monitor the progress of the task before sending an invoice. This helps you maintain your visibility into invoiced amounts.

• Bill as—Select if the task has a Fixed Fee (i.e. the task has a set price) or Time & Materials (i.e. the task is billed hourly) billing type.
• Add Time—Click this to open the Time Entry form, where you can quickly track time for the task.
• View Rolled-Up Details / View Task Details—For tasks with subtasks, you can toggle between the Time & Fees task details for that task and a rolled-up progress meter of all its subtasks that displays the budget burn (i.e., billable time multiplied by bill rate against the task budget) for both Fixed Fee and Time & Materials tasks.
• Time Trackable—If time tracking is allowed on a project and for specific task types selected in the Time & Expense Settings page, Account Administrators can select to allow time and expense tracking for a task.
  Note: An Account Administrator can determine in the Time & Expense account settings if newly created tasks are Time Trackable or not by default. If this checkbox does not appear, you cannot track time and expenses against this task and this cannot be changed without an Account Administrator’s help. If the checkbox is grayed out, you do not have permission to restrict time and expense tracking for this task.
• Billable—Select this checkbox to indicate whether a task is billable or non-billable.
• View Entries—Opens the Time & Expenses tab of the project with the appropriate task selected.

Scheduling 
(Premier & Enterprise)

For those with Project Permissions to schedule hours, this section makes it easy to set up a task-level resource plan where you can schedule hours for resources on a week-by-week basis. This helps you estimate your resource needs and gives you a better feel for an individual's contributions to a task.

The financial information available in the Scheduling section provides an estimated budget based on your resource plan by calculating how many hours your team will spend on each task. For more information, see the Planned Budget article.

In this section, you can:

• View a summary of the estimated budget, time, and performance of a task.
• See the actual time and billable revenue tracked against a task.
• Locate hours and fees scheduled or projected into the future.
• Add, edit, or modify scheduled hours or future committed hours.
• Assign or remove members from the task.
• View the total hours scheduled for all team members assigned to the task.

Summary

The Summary area in the Scheduling section provides you with a summary of the task's estimated budget and time, calculated using scheduled hours and actual fees. For more information, see the Project Completion Estimates article.

• Calculated from—The dates included in the calculation. Although the default is today's date, it can be adjusted to any date to change the boundary between actual fees and EAC. For example, if today's date is March 13th, it will calculate actual fees through March 13th and use ETC to get EAC for March 14th and after.
• Budgeted—The budgeted/estimated hours and fees for this task.
• Actual—The actual hours and fees that have been tracked towards this task, including its percentage in relation to what was budgeted.
• Not Yet Worked—Future scheduled hours/fees for your members.
• Estimate At Completion (EAC)—The total of hours/fees that have already been tracked plus Not Yet Worked (i.e. future scheduled hours).
• Variance—What is budgeted for the task minus the EAC (Estimate at Completion), which determines the performance of this task. If the variance is positive, it means that the task is healthy (i.e., the task is scheduled and/or budgeted correctly). If the variance is negative, it means that the task is expected to be completed over the time and budget allotted for this activity.

Resourcing

The Resourcing area of the Scheduling section displays the total number of Scheduled Hours and Projected Budget for the task so you can compare the future scheduled hours to the actual time tracked against the task. This gives you an estimate of how many hours the task will take and what the budget should be.

The week-by-week, task-level Resourcing area will indicate when resources are scheduled at capacity, over capacity, under capacity, available, unavailable, out of range, or have time off. If you want to jump to a specific time, click the Calendar (“   ”) icon and select a day, or use the forward (“   ”) and back (“   ”) arrows to scroll through dates.

Click Add Resource to add a resource from your pool of project participants. This option won't appear if you run out of eligible project participants. Every resource you add from here will also be added as an Assignee in the Details section above.

Once you start scheduling hours, the Scheduled Hours and Projected Budget for your task will update based on your changes. Scheduling task hours helps you to estimate when and for how long you’ll need certain resources. You'll want to start by either building your resource plan in the project Task Tracker or by applying a template to a project and mapping resource placeholders to your project resources. Scheduled hours for your resources can be pre-populated if created from a template.

Use the Actions (“   ”) menu to select one of the following resource-specific options:

• Clear All Scheduled Hours—Removes all of the resource's scheduled time for this task, including hours scheduled in the past.
• Clear Only Future Scheduled Hours—Remove all of the resource's future scheduled time for this task. Once your project is in motion, you may find that some resources are completing tasks ahead of schedule. When this happens, you’ll want to use this option so that resources can be freed up and utilized for other projects.
• Refresh Rate—Updates the calculation to use the current rate for a particular assignee.
• Unassign—Removes the resource as a task Assignee. In turn, it also removes all of their scheduled time for this task.

Total Scheduled Time (“   ”)—Clicking on this icon causes a row to appear below the resource row which totals their scheduled hours (including time off) across all projects and task assignments for the week. To see where a member's capacity is being allocated, click on a daily hour tally in the row.

Resource Shaping (“   ”)—Use this tool to turn estimated hours into scheduled hours and build a resource schedule based on availability and work capacity. For more about distributing scheduled hours over the duration of a task with the legacy Resource Shaping tool, please see our Distribute Scheduled Hours article.

Align scheduled time (“   ”)—This option only appears if you have the Sync Resource Schedules With Project Dates setting enabled in General Settings. This is used to realign Scheduled Hours for team members if they get out of sync with the task Start Date by aligning the hours to the earliest start date and shifting the existing hours accordingly.

If the Sync Resource Schedules with Project Dates account setting is enabled, the Cascade Changes option in the Task Tracker controls whether your resource's Scheduled Hours are automatically adjusted when task dates are changed in the Task Tracker table or Task side panel. However, if the Cascade Changes option is turned off and you shift the task dates, you'll need to manually realign the team member's Scheduled Hours by clicking Align Scheduled Time.

Proofs

This section allows you to create a proof by uploading files (JPEG, PNG, and PDF) from your computer or dragging and dropping your source files into the drop zone. Team members can then provide feedback directly on uploaded files. This saves time during the review, feedback sharing, and approval process and eliminates the need for external tools or to keep track of files or conversations over email.

To learn more, see our Kantata Proofing article.

Files

This section displays all the files uploaded to the task via the Activity section, when they were uploaded, who uploaded them, the file size, and an icon that represents the file type. From here, you can view, download, and delete them.

History (Premier & Enterprise)

Available to Project Administrators, the History section displays the 20 most recent events that occurred on the task in the past 120 days. You can select Show More for an event to see more details for that event, such as which task fields were updated.

The following events are displayed in Task History:

• Task created and updated
• Task custom field values created, updated, and deleted
• Task assignments created, updated (i.e. reassigned, via Resource Center or project Resourcing only) and deleted (i.e. unassigned)
  Note: Task unassign events only appear in Task History if a user is unassigned via the legacy Resourcing tab. When someone is unassigned via the Task Tracker, that event will not appear in Task History, but will appear in Project History, as a Task Updated event.

The following events are not displayed in Task History, but can be viewed in Project History:

• Task assignments updated (including when resource estimated hours are changed)
• Scheduled hours created, updated, and deleted
• Time entries created, updated, and deleted
• Expenses created, updated, and deleted

The following events are not included in Task History or in Project History:

• Task activity posts
• Task followers added and removed

You can select the View More History link at the bottom of the History section to open Project History, where you can see more events for that task.

For a list of the properties that can be viewed for each event, see the Subscribed Events Reference article. Note that some fields are not displayed in Task History (such as IDs); these fields can be viewed in Project History or the Subscribed Events API.