I’ve added recurring tasks feature in our backlog.
It’s not a priority at the moment since we still have a work to do regarding the core functionalities, but I hope it will be done by the end of the year.
I see this possibly being integrated into the notifications core functionality…
e.g. Notify me of the status of _x_ card every _y_ days
Sometimes it is nice to have a new item created, but sometimes it might be enough to just remind the user to go back and look at the status of an item… I see this as super useful if reminders could be setup for unfinished task lists.
Got it! You’re completely right. We’re just about to finish Notifications feature and see how would the Reminders fit in there, just like you said. But Reminder feature is definitely on our list of features to build in the near future. It’s essential to the flexible and productive flow we’re building in Infinity
Now, this is a direct copy/paste from todo.vu but I think it gives a few things to consider when recurring tasks are going implemented in Infinity (Q3 I hope ):
The problem (I saw it on many platforms):
To best illustrate the mistakes other systems make, let’s consider Asana – arguably one of the most used project management systems today.
Asana’s implementation of repeating (recurring) tasks is typical of most other systems and it is fundamentally flawed. In Asana, you can only ever see the next occurrence of the task, and the task does not repeat until after it is completed.
This means that:
if you have a daily task and you don’t complete Monday’s task until Wednesday, then you will only see Tuesday’s task on Wednesday and still nothing for Wednesday.
future occurrences of the task do not show up in your calendar.
there is no way to adjust one specific occurrence – for instance, if you have a monthly meeting that is typically the first Monday of the month, but one Monday happens to be a public holiday, then you would want to be able to shift that meeting to Tuesday in advance, but that is not possible.
There is no way to add custom content or attachments to future tasks.
Their solution:
In todo.vu, repeating tasks are real tasks , they are editable and customisable and visible in calendars .
Each occurrence is a real task that can be viewed, edited and customised in advance.
Each future task occurrence shows up in your calendar and iCal sync feeds.
Future tasks are snoozed so they do not clutter your to do list, but will automatically “wake up” at a predetermined interval before the task is due.
Each task has independent workflow and will become ‘to do’ and ‘due’ independent of previous tasks.
You can make tasks recur on any number of days, any sequence of weekdays, weeks, months or years and also “Nth weekday of the month” sequences.
Most businesses have repeating tasks. Even if your primary client/project work does not repeat, you will surely have tax returns, license and insurance renewals, domain name renewals and other administrative tasks that regularly repeat.
Being able to capture and schedule these into your task management system without cluttering your inbox is vital for a smooth functioning office.
So when you are reviewing alternative systems – take a serious look at how they really work. Most implement a weak and almost useless version of recurring tasks in order to complete a checkbox on a functionality survey. But at todo.vu we have developed a genuine, robust and flexible solution to keep you and your business productive at all times.
I think that this kind of approach is much better but I’d like to hear what other members have to say.
This recurring task thing is critical for us to adopt Infinity for more than just the awesome table view. I assume this is part of the “automation” Sprint due in June but it is some vital for us to use tasks as we usually set everything up for our staff. As a digital agency we have a lot of tasks that repeat monthly (think new digital ads, new social media posts, etc) so auto repeats of tasks are critical. I think the first few post summarize how we would like to see things and I also think Teamwork Projects does this right on both their boards and their project list views (all task and subs-tasks can be set to repeat). We mainly want high-level tasks repeating but it is good to have the option. https://support.teamwork.com/projects/project-sections/working-with-repeating-tasks
Now a few interesting ideas from FacileThings web app about routines (that’s how they call repeating/recurring tasks):
The advanced options allow modifying the way the dates are calculated and how the recurring actions are generated.
Inactive until : Allows you to “hide” the action generated by the routine in the Tickler File until a few days before the scheduled day for its execution, so that it does not distract you when it is not yet necessary.
Starts : Allows you to set a date from which the actions of the routine will begin to appear. The first action will appear on the first date equal or later than the one indicated that matches the specified recurrence.
Ends : It allows you to indicate how long this routine should be generating actions. You can define a specific number of ocurrences, or an end date.
Calculated . There are certain recurring events that, when delayed, must delay the next occurrence, such as “vaccinate the dog every three months.” If you delayed a couple of weeks the last vaccine, the next should one be three months after you put it on. For this class of actions, use the calculated on completion option.
Generates . The usual thing is to generate only one recurring task, so that the Calendar does not get filled with tasks that can create distraction. However, sometimes, due to planning issues, it is interesting to simultaneously have all the occurrences of a routine for the next week in the Calendar, so you don’t miss any appointment. Usually, if you do not skip the Weekly Review, generating all the actions for a month will not be necessary.
And here there’s an explanation about the last feature:
In some cases, due to planning issues, it’s interesting to simultaneously have all the occurrences of a routine for the next week in the Calendar, so you don’t miss any appointment.
We have added a new advanced option in the Routines programming section that will allow you to generate all the recurring actions of a routine during a week or a month. This can only be done with routines whose actions go to the Calendar and have a daily or weekly frequency (it does not make sense for routines with a higher frequency).
This option has three possible values: Generates one item, generates item for a week, generates items for a month. The recommendation is to always generate a single item, except for those events that you really need to take into account when consulting the Calendar during the week. Normally, if you don’t skip the Weekly Review, generating all the actions for a month will not be necessary.
Once you have generated all the recurring actions for a week or a month, there will always be the same number of actions of that routine in the Calendar. When you mark the first one on the list as done, a new action will be automatically added at the end, and so on.
Cards can be set for new copies to be created at any specified time: daily, weekly, monthly, or annually. No excuse now if you forget your mother’s birthday present.
Repeated cards will include members, descriptions, checklists, etc. from the parent card, saving you even more time.
(…)
Regularly Scheduled 1:1 Meetings: Managers and members of the HR team that hold regular 1:1 meetings, check-ins, and reviews can set up repeating cards to not only remind team members of an upcoming meeting, but also to have a place where people can list items to discuss during a meeting, or make note of any takeaways.
End Of Month Bookkeeping Reminders: When it comes to closing out the books each month, finance and operations teams can have cards created with all of the steps required to make sure no money gets lost in the metaphorical sofa.
Automating Repeating Reports : Speaking of money, sales teams that need to put together weekly, monthly, and annual sales reports can have those tasks added to their to-do list with the Google Sheets file already attached to the card.
Regular Content Creation for Marketing: Marketing teams that send out regular newsletters or publish blog posts can have cards created with the content manager responsible for the newsletter already added to the card, and a checklist of everything that needs to get done to send a successful marketing email.
IT teams that regularly enforce password changes can keep track of what passwords need to be updated, minimizing the risk of security breaches.
@coa
With the addition to recurring tasks, this is another use case for Webhooks as notification for a given task.
eg. On every X days, send Webhook to CRM to perform a lookup, generate PDF for billing or to send off an email to all customers in CRM with criteria posted from Infinity.
Thanks for being active with new ideas & suggestions on how we can improve Infinity further.
Recurring tasks feature will be a part of ‘Automations’ which are not really tied directly to the ‘core’ of our product, which is bases more around ‘data creation and insert’ rather than activity.
Once we finalize the ‘core’, which includes a couple of more big feature (such as Advanced Permissions, Mobile apps, reminders, optimization/performance/speed updates, Gantt View), we will most likely focus on Automations.
I’m sorry if this is not too exact, but I hope we can work on that from 2020 (New Year).
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