Task Recurrence based on the Date of Completion
I'm missing a feature which is part of Outlook's Task Scheduler.
When marking a task with a given period for recurrency as done i.e. completed the task should be rescheduled based on the date of completion.
Available in release 1.2.24.
-
M-A commented
I was waiting for around two years ... now this feature is available.
Thank you!
-
Jeff Jensen commented
w00t! This was the last item keeping me using Outlook tasks. Thanks a lot @Frank for implementing it and fixing the reminder time problem!
-
hazysonic commented
looks great, this adds a much-wanted feature for me!
-
@T.J. I think there's a feature request on default start and due times. Please add a comment there and I'll see it in my mailbox.
-
T.J. Mueller commented
@Frank, Reusing the start/due time should be fine. As I said earlier, I don't use the times and try to set all of mine to 00:00, though sometimes I forget and have to come back and clean things up later. I would prefer a way to avoid times entirely. If not a preferences option, then the option to set a default start time. The main thing is you added this feature and that helps a lot. Thank you.
-
I decided to reuse the times of the start and due date/time. Let me know how that works out for you.
-
@T.J. Thanks for testing. I'll see what I can do.
-
T.J. Mueller commented
@Frank. Looks pretty good. It will be very nice to have this feature. I think use date of completion only, not time. But I don't use times in Task Coach anyway. I set them all to 0:00. I would prefer a preferences option to leave times out entirely from everything in Task Coach.
-
@hazysonic, did you try the prerelease build?
-
hazysonic commented
that all makes sense to me. It might be nice to have a sub-option to keep the same time, but honestly i'll be completely happy just being able to have this option at all.
It makes sense to me that you could mark it completed more than once and it's still due the same time--that's the behavior i would want.
-
I did a quick implementation today. You can download a preview from http://www.fraca7.net/TaskCoach-packages/latest_bugfixes.py. You need at least revision 4554.
When you set the recurrence to be based on completion date, Task Coach will use the completion date *and time* as basis for the recurrence. I'm not sure that using the time of the completion date/time is a good idea as the time of the next due date/time then depends on when exactly you finish the previous recurrence. So maybe only the date of the completion should be used and not the time. Please let me know what you think.
Another consequence of the current implementation is that you cannot work in advance. If have a daily task and mark it completed, the next occurence will be scheduled due tomorrow. But when you mark that one completed the next occurence will still be for tomorrow. Logical on the one hand, but it might be surprising as well.
-
Jeff Jensen commented
I've just been experimenting with Task Coach, trying to move from Outlook tasks. This is the one item that still keeps me on Outlook, regretfully. I'm happy to see some recent movement on this item. Hopefully it comes to fruition soon as I've enjoyed working with Task Coach so far.
-
hazysonic commented
@Frank The A | B dropdown option looks good to me
-
T.J. Mueller commented
Frank, I used the word "follows" in context. We are already in the context of recurrence. But what you suggest seems fine. Is anyone else watching this discussion? it would be interesting to to get some other opinions. Some users clearly understand why recurrence based on completion is useful. Others may not and may need it explained. ...tj
-
@T.J. "follows from ..." That begs the question: *what* follows?
I was thinking along the lines of "When completing the task, schedule the next recurrence one <period> after [previous start and/or due date | last completion date]", where [ A | B ] are two options in a dropdown menu and <period> is based on the currently selected recurrence frequency (weekly -> week, daily -> day, etc).
-
T.J. Mueller commented
Best I can come up with would be something like: Label the two options "follows from due date" and "follows from completion date". Then add a sentence, perhaps in a rollover: "use due date for periodic tasks, and completion date for tasks requiring a fixed time to elapse after they are actually done." I will think more on this, but you probably won't hear from me for a day or so. I need to disconnect now and tomorrow I'm traveling all day. Good luck, ...tj
-
@T.J. Any suggestions for hopefully self-explaining text on the label(s)?
-
T.J. Mueller commented
@Frank. Yes. ( I was thinking of a checkbox or pair of radio buttons in the "recurrence" section under the date tab of the task edit dialog.)
-
@T.J. Thanks! One more question, or rather, assumption. I'm going to assume that the choice between recurrence based on date of completion versus original plan dates is part of the recurrence specification (as opposed to a decision the users makes on every recurrence). OK?
-
T.J. Mueller commented
@Frank The answer to all four of your questions is "yes". I think you understand completely. Thank you for paying attention to this. ...tj