Add tasks to a plan and assign contributors and approvers

Tasks represent discrete steps or contributions that must be completed in a planning or budgeting cycle. When you add tasks to your plan, you can assign these tasks to contributors and approvers. You can also control the order in which tasks are completed by creating dependencies between the tasks.

1. On the plan page, go to the Plan tasks tab and click Add task.
2. Under Task details, enter the task name and description.
3. Select one or more dependencies for the task. Dependencies let you automate your plan workflow by opening a task only when any dependent tasks are complete.

   The Task dependency option is available only when a plan contains two or more tasks. The option is not available when you create the first task in a plan. If you select a single dependency, the task automatically opens when the single dependent task is complete. If you select multiple dependencies, the task opens only when all dependent tasks are complete.

4. Enter a start and due date for the task.

   The due date indicates the deadline for contributions to the task, but it does not have any impact on the state of an open task. When the due date is reached or surpassed, an open task remains open until it is closed by an administrator.

5. Indicate whether the task requires a recorded submission.

   When a task requires submission, at least one user from one of the assigned contributor user groups must click Submit on the plan contribution page to confirm that work was completed for the task. A member of the approver user group then reviews the submission and either accepts or rejects it. If a task does not require a submission, the user can click Complete to indicate that a task is complete.

6. Under Tags, follow these steps to add one or more color-coded tags:
   1. Click into the Tags field, and click Create new tag
   2. In the Name field, enter a label for your tag.
   3. Choose a color for your tag.

      Select from the colors that are available in the dialog box, or click Custom color picker and select a custom color. The color picker is different in different browsers. You can see what the tag will look like in the Preview field.

   4. Click Create.
   5. Expand the Tags field, select the tag that you just created, and click Save to add it to the task.

      Any tags that you create are saved to the plan. This means that all tasks in a plan can share the available tags. Tasks can't access tags from other plans.

   6. Click the Edit a tag icon next to a tag to edit or delete the tag.
      Important: When you delete a tag, the tag is removed from all tasks in the plan that use the tag.
7. Use Upload files to add one or more files to the task. Any attachment that you add here is available to users as a link in the task.
8. Under Assets, select the assets (books, views, or websheets) from the Available section that you want to include in the task.
   Assets then display in the Selected list in the order that you select them. You can click and drag assets to different positions to change the ordering.

   Tip: In Planning Analytics Workspace 2.0.94 and later versions, you can select a tab to open by default in book assets.
9. Under Contributors, select the user groups that you want to assign as contributors to the task.
   You can select any combination of existing user groups or the Everyone virtual user group. The Everyone group assigns all users in your environment as contributors for a task.
   When a user group is assigned as contributors to a task, the security for the section assets is updated to provide the necessary access for the user group.
   Important: Plan security is applied only to Planning Analytics Workspace user groups. There are no links or dependencies to TM1 object security. It is the responsibility of the Planning Analytics Workspace administrator to ensure that the Planning Analytics Workspace user groups have the requisite TM1® security permissions to view and edit assets.
10. Under Approvers, select the user groups that you want to assign as approvers for each contributor group. Approvers review submissions and can either approve or reject them.
11. Click Add task.
12. Repeat these steps if you want to create additional tasks.

    You can also click Duplicate task to duplicate a task that you created to quickly create similar tasks.

    When you duplicate a task, most of the details such as the dependencies, contributors, and approvers are copied from the original task to the duplicated task. The following information in the duplicate task differs from the original task:

    • Task name - The duplicated task name includes the original name and appends an underscore and number at the end of the task name.
    • Start and due dates - Dates that occur in the past are reset. For the start and due dates to be copied over to the duplicated task, the start date must occur in the future.
    • Submission logs - Contributions and approvals are not copied over and submission logs are reset in the duplicated task.
    • Task status - The task status for duplicated tasks is set to Closed.