Help
Parts, tasks and steps
How a plan is built: parts, the tasks in them and the steps in those, with checkpoints, tracks and Needs help for when you need them.
Three levels
A part is a slice of the work, named after what it makes, such as Research or Writing. A task is a concrete piece of a part, with one person, a date and a status. A step is a line in a task's checklist: it can have its own person and date, but no status. Nothing goes deeper than steps.
The outline
The Plan opens as an Outline: parts as headings with how far they've got, tasks as rows with their person, date and status, and the steps under each task. Up and Down move between rows, Enter adds a row at the same level, and Tab and Shift+Tab move a row down or up a level. A row's menu does the same with Make it a task, Make it a step of the task above and Make it a part. Keys lists them all.
Many at once
Type or paste a list into the box under a part: each line becomes a task, and indented lines become its steps. Duplicate copies a task with its steps, or a part with its tasks and steps, for chapters, songs or runs that follow the same pattern.
Statuses
A task is Not started, Working, In review or Done. A part's status comes from its tasks: Done when every task is done, In review while any task is in review, and Working once any has started. When a piece of work has rounds of its own, like draft, supervisor and revise, write them as that task's steps.
Any order or in order
A part's tasks run side by side. Choose Do the tasks in order in the part's menu and they're numbered, and only the next one is live: the others say what they come after. Between parts, use Waits for….
Board and Timeline
Board shows the tasks in four columns by status, grouped by part or by track: drag a card, or move it with the keyboard, to change its status. Timeline draws each part as a strand in its track's lane, from its first date to its due date, with the checkpoints as knots across them. It shows up once the project has a deadline or a checkpoint.
Checkpoints and tracks
A checkpoint is a dated point, such as a mid-point hand-in or a supervisor meeting; the deadline is always the last one. Choose Due at a checkpoint… for a part or task, and it moves when the checkpoint moves. A track is a lane, such as Research or Writing: it draws the Timeline and filters the plan. Neither adds a level.
Needs help
Choose Needs help… on a part or task, with a note if you like. The part's owners, or the people on the task, and the Lead hear about it, and it shows until someone clears it.
Not doing, and tasks that repeat
The Overview keeps a Not doing list under the goal: what the project leaves out, so nobody spends time on it. With Repeat… in a task's menu, it comes back every week, every two weeks or every month: when it's done, the next one is made with the same people and steps.
Each part's result, and what we hand in
A part can hold its result, the document it makes: on the part's page, choose Add this part's result to upload a file, choose one from the library or add a link, such as a Google Doc. Its state is the part's own status. Mark the part that brings everything together We hand this in: its page lists every other part's result, and the Overview shows Mark as handed in, which records the version that went. You can hand in before the part is Done.
Still stuck?
Write to us at hello@belaywork.com and tell us what you were trying to do.