The Planner view is a section of COR that allows to plan, distribute and control the time of our resources, by allocating tasks in a specific time range, in order to maximize productivity and achieve project goals. It provides a centralized view of user availability, helping to avoid over-busy, or idle time that could be billable.
- How does the Planner view work?
- How to schedule tasks?
- How to track hours from Planner?
- Who has access to Planner?
- Planner integration with Calendar
How does the Planner view work?
To access the view we must do it from the left sidebar. By default, the view will always open in our own agenda.
The agenda is organized with a series of columns representing the days of the week (Monday to Friday), and rows representing the hours of the day.
In the Users selector located at the top right, we can add the agendas of other collaborators by clicking on the blue button with the "+" symbol. A drop-down menu will open from where we can search for the users we want to add to the view. Once selected, click on "Confirm".
Note: The view allows you to see the agendas of up to 10 users at the same time.
Each day of the agenda will have as many columns as users we have selected, where the tasks that each one has planned will be displayed, occupying more or less rows according to the estimated work time for that day.
We can choose between a daily or weekly view, according to our preference, being able to navigate between one and the other without losing the selections.
In the Tasks panel, located on the right, we will see only those tasks over which we have viewing permissions, showing by default those with which we have interacted recently.
In the lower right corner of each task, its scheduled vs. estimated hours will be shown. The data of the scheduled hours will be shown in different colors depending on whether it is greater than the estimated hours (red), equal (green) or less (yellow).
We will be able to apply a series of filters to customize the list, such as: Status, Creation date, Start date, Deadline, Client, Label, Priority, Project, Brand or Scheduled/Unscheduled.
In addition, using the task search engine, we can search for a specific task by its name, id or URL.
Furthermore, to have a more complete view of the agenda, we can collapse the Tasks sidebar by clicking on the checklist icon located in the upper right corner of the sidebar. In the same way, by clicking again on the icon, we can show the hidden panels.
How to schedule tasks?
Once we have the tasks we need, we will drag them one by one to the grid, placing them in the day and time we want to schedule them and in the corresponding user's column. By default, the task will occupy a single row (one hour), but we can stretch it by clicking on its lower end and dragging it up or down as many cells as we need.
We will also have the option to create a task directly, by clicking on an empty space in the grid that we will select according to the user, day and date we want it to be scheduled. The quick task creation panel will open, which we will fill in with the name of the task and the project to which it belongs. The task will be scheduled to the Planner of the user we have selected, on the date and time indicated.
In case we need to move several tasks simultaneously from one grid space to another, we can select them by holding down the Ctrl button (in Windows) or Command (in Mac) and clicking on each one of them, and then dragging them to the corresponding slot.
Clicking on any of the tasks in the grid will open a pop-up window with the details of the task. From there we can make different modifications, such as:
- Delete the allocation by clicking on the trash can icon.
- Edit the date and/or start and end time of the allocation and set its recurrence by clicking on the pencil icon.
- Go to the task panel by clicking on the window icon with an arrow.
By default, the allocation recurrence will be set to “Never”, indicating that the task is scheduled only once in the user's Planner on the date and time indicated.
If we want the allocation to recur, we can choose from three Recurrence options: Daily, Weekly or Monthly. In turn, these options can be customized to indicate how many days/weeks/months it should recur, from and until what date, and in the case of monthly recurrence, whether it should recur on a certain date (e.g. every 25th), or on a specific day of the week (e.g. every first Wednesday of the month).
Once the recurrence of the allocation has been configured, the recurrence icon () will appear in the lower left corner.
From now on, when we want to edit a scheduled recurring task, COR will ask us if we want to edit only the selected allocation or the entire recurrence. We will also be able to access the editing by double clicking on the task in question.
By clicking on the blue 'Notify changes' button , located in the upper corner, we will inform the selected users that changes were made to their agendas, by means of pop-up notifications that they will receive in COR.
How to track hours from Planner?
If we have Planner editing permissions, we will have access to the "My Time" tab located in the upper left corner, where we will see only our agenda and our planned tasks.
In the lower right corner of each of the tasks, we will see a box with the number of hours we have loaded in the task vs. the number of hours we have planned. By hovering the cursor over this box, a menu will be displayed where we can choose how to track time into the task.
By clicking on the green check mark, we will track as many hours as necessary to reach the planned time of the task. If we click on the stopwatch icon, on the other hand, we will be able to manually enter any number of hours in the tracking hours panel.
Who has access to Planner?
By default, users with PM, Director or C-Level roles will have permissions to view and edit their own agendas as well as those of the rest of the collaborators in their teams. Collaborators, on the other hand, will only have permissions to view their own agendas.
In any case, permissions are customizable and any user with User editing permissions can add or remove Planner permissions to other users, or to any role in general.
Planner integration with Calendar
Planner allows us to have visibility not only on our planned tasks and those of our team, but also on Calendar events. For this, it is necessary to have one of the calendar integrations turned on.
For more information on how to activate the integrations, please refer to the following articles:
Once integrated, the "Show events" button will appear in the upper right corner of the screen.
When we click it, all the events we have scheduled will appear in the agenda in their respective day and time. In the same way, when we click it again, the events will no longer be displayed.
The events marked as private in Calendar will be shown in the same way in Planner, occupying only the corresponding space.
Note: At the moment it is not possible to interact with the events, but they are shown for information purposes only.
We will also be able to visualize the scheduled events of other users of our team. For this, it is necessary to be subscribed to the calendar of the user we want to see, which is done directly from the Calendar app.
Once subscribed, it will be necessary to restart the integration by deactivating it and activating it again. Then, when we select this user we will not only see his tasks, but also his events.
It is important to note that every time we subscribe to a collaborator's calendar, we will have to restart the integration so that we can see their events in the agenda.