Due dates : view monthly tasks?
 

Hello,

I have a project that have tasks planned for the next six months. Obviously, as time passes, the due dates are more estimates than actual due dates and the task are better defined (more subtasks) in the next few weeks than in three months.

I like to print at the beginning of a week a report with the upcoming task. I would like to know if it is possible to add a time constraint to perspectives a bit longer than one week (maximum length for upcoming task) like show task for the coming months so that I don't have to print the task that are due in 6 months and not really of interest at the moment.

Showing active tasks is not an option as it doesn't give me a view of what I will have to achieve by the end of the month.

Also, and I know this other issue has already been raised in another post, and that the omni team is thinking about it but it will be really nice to have a light gantt feature.

Thanks for your help.

I may not be entirely understanding the goal, but what about using start dates? If a task is due in six months, and you know that you won't even consider starting it until four months from now, you could give it a start date of four months from now, and then filter out tasks with future start dates in your everyday perspectives.

In fact, I'd recommend using start dates, instead of due dates, for all tasks where you want a fairly flexible date marker. I prefer to confine due dates to situations where the stuff is really, truly due, so that I know to be concerned if I see even one task coming due or overdue.

Gardener

Thanks for your reply!

Yes I did set start date, but even tasks planned in 2 months appear. Can you set a date after which tasks don't appear??

The main aim is to have a document that displays tasks for the coming months (one week is too short and every remaining task is too long) and also to save trees ;)

Savanes

To make the tasks with future start dates disappear, you'll want to show "available" actions, instead of "remaining" actions in the Status Filter. I think that should do it. Then set the start date to be the date that you want the task to become visible to you.

If you are looking at Available actions instead of Remaining or All, actions with future start dates should not appear. You can use start dates as Gardener suggested that have a good chunk of time between start and due so that you see it for the month in which it is due, even if you won't necessarily start working on it immediately. If you were doing one starting March 1, the actions due in the month of March would have a start date of March 1. Actions due in April would have a start date in mid to late March. Actions due in May would have start dates in mid to late April. Then you can view available actions and still see what is coming up as far as deadlines in the next month without being overwhelmed. Of course, if some actions will require substantially more time, they will get an earlier start date, but the general idea is that you try to have a month's worth of (upcoming) work always in view.

Month ahead view and longer
 

I would like to see further than 1 week ahead in the "Due" view. Is there a way to extend the view into 'due within a month' or due within the next 3 months? How about a customized view for each, i.e., a 3, 6, 9 and 12 month view?

I endeavor to always place a date, whether due or begin or both in my actions. I just want to know if there is a simple way to view those tasks and projects that are further out than 1 week.

The built-in Due perspective only goes out a week, but you can create a custom perspective that looks farther out.

You can adapt the steps in [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=75570"]this post[/URL] to create one (or more) perspectives that show you particular timeframes. Does that help?

Actually, Brian, it only goes out the period of time you've defined as "Due Soon".... I've always found this to be a rather frustrating implementation choice!