User's Manual

Overview of Jalot

Jalot is a system designed to track and help you organize tasks – distinct items that need to be done. While you can use Jalot to organize your own tasks, Jalot is designed to organize tasks across multiple users, keeping a project team, family, or classroom on the same page with what needs to get done. Jalot is simple and easy to use – it is designed to be as fast as possible to enter and maintain a task’s status. Jalot stands for “Just a Lot of Tasks” – it strives to be very good at collecting and organizing tasks by not gathering a ton of information that never ends up being used.

Tasks are organized into task lists – a collection of tasks all relating to the same project, subject, client, or other organization unit. Task lists and the tasks within each list are shared across multiple users – all users see a task in the same task list. Each task belongs to one task list. The permissions on a task list are the default permissions for a task, but a user may end up with access to a specific task within a task list without having permission to see the other tasks within the list.

An individual task can have one of three states: active (currently on someone’s to-do list), closed (usually meaning completed), or deferred (still remains to be done, but not actively being worked on). While a task is active or deferred, it is always assigned to one user, who is considered to be responsible for the completion of the task. As a task grows and changes over time, the assigned user may change to reflect delegated tasks or different people’s role in the task’s completion. A deferred task may be deferred indefinitely or may have a date in the future where the task will automatically become active again.

The main Jalot screen shows you tasks you are currently watching. You automatically watch a task that you either created or were assigned to; you can also choose to watch other tasks you have access to. You can also watch a task list, which will automatically watch any tasks created in that task list. You can stop watching any task that is not assigned to you – it will be removed from your main screen.

Jalot keeps track of a task’s history – a log of changes to a task and comments about a task. A watched task that has new history that you have not seen is highlighted for you, so that you can keep notified of changes that other users make to tasks you are watching. It is very fast and easy to keep abreast of your watched tasks.

Task lists and tasks can have different levels of permissions, automatically maintained by Jalot. It is likely that you will never go into a task or task list and explicitly set permissions, but Jalot’s permission structure allows you to keep all of your tasks – family, work, school, volunteer groups – all in one place, without mixing your work tasks with your family tasks. Jalot works to keep unwanted tasks (“task spam”) from showing up on your to-do lists by only letting people that you know assign tasks to you.

Jalot can be very powerful and a useful way to collect your hundreds of things that need to be done. This document describes how to use the software, but other documents in the Jalot library describe strategies and techniques used to maximize Jalot’s power and utility.

What Jalot Does NOT Do

Jalot was designed to be simple enough to invite regular, heavy usage. To keep it simple, many things that clog up other task management systems were intentionally not added to Jalot. A different document, “Respecting the J,” describes the rationale behind these decisions. To save time trying to dig through this manual to see how to do something that Jalot doesn’t do, here is a brief list of features founds in other task management systems that are intentionally not implemented in Jalot:

• Due dates. A Jalot task does not have a due date, although if a task is not being worked on at all its start date can be deferred to a point in the future.
• Priorities. Jalot does not prioritize tasks; rather, it displays all active tasks within a specific task list to allow the user to select the most important task to work on. Currently, there is no way to re-order the tasks show within a task list; they are always shown in either alphabetical order or in order of creation date, depending on the screen.
• Partial completion. A Jalot task is in one of three states: active, deferred, or closed. There is no such thing as a Jalot task that has been half-completed, although users will frequently add comments describing progress made on a task.
• Multiple assignments. A task in Jalot can only have one user assigned to the task at a time.
• Multiple task lists. A task can only be in one task list at a time, and should rarely be moved between task lists.
• Calendar. Jalot does not keep track of appointments or meetings.
• Time tracking. Jalot does not track the number of hours worked on a task, although users can add it to a task’s comments if desired.
• Estimated time to complete. Jalot does not track how “hard” one task is compared to other tasks.

In general, Jalot tells you what needs to be done, not what to do. Jalot’s power is in its simplicity.

Main Screen

The primary Jalot screen shows all of your watched tasks, and is divided into two panes. By default, the top pane shows “your” tasks – tasks that you either created or are assigned to you. These are likely to be the most important tasks in the system. By selecting other choices from the View pull-down list in the top-left corner, you can shift your view to other categories of tasks. On all screens, only tasks which you have access to view are shown; you cannot view the tasks within the “family” task list of another user, for example, unless you have access to that user’s “family” task list.

Double-clicking on a task list will show or hide the tasks within that task list; you can select “collapse all” to collapse all task lists. Double-clicking on a task or selecting a task and then clicking “View” in the link bar will open the “View Task” window for the selected task. Selecting a task list and clicking “View” in the link bar will open the list view window.

Closed tasks – usually, completed tasks – have the assigned user displayed as “(Closed)”. Deferred tasks are displayed grayed out, and tasks with history that you have not yet seen are displayed in green. A count of the number of new tasks and tasks with new history is displayed in the lower-right corner of the screen; clicking on that status line will open the next new or unread task.

Creating Tasks

Creating tasks in Jalot is fast and easy – perhaps even faster than ending email to someone asking them to do the task.  Click on the “New Task” link at the top right of the main Jalot screen and the new task window will open. A task has five components:

• Task Name. A brief (roughly half-line) description of the task.
• Task List. A pull-down list of available task lists. Task lists that you are currently watching appear in the list. Other task lists that you have access to but are not watching can be selected by choosing “Other Task List” and then selecting the task list from that dialog box.
• Task Assignment. A non-completed task is always assigned to a specific user. Jalot makes guesses about likely users to be assigned to a task based on the task list selected. If the desired user is not available in the pull-down list, select “Other User” and select the user from that dialog box. To prevent task spam, you can only assign a task to a user who is known to you.
• Task Description. A more complete description of the task, including any supporting information.
• Task History. A history of changes to the tasks. The task history is not entered from the create task screen, but will be automatically maintained by Jalot.

After creating a task, it will automatically appear on the assigned user’s task list screen, and will also automatically appear on the screens of other users watching the task’s task list.

Viewing a Task

The “View Task” window shows the current state of the task, including a history of changes and comments.

Adding a Comment to a Task

You can add a comment to a task by clicking on the “New Comment” link in the View Task screen. Jalot will automatically note your name and the time that the comment is added. Users who are watching the task will automatically be notified that there is a new comment attached to the task.

The comment is a single line of text, although the text will automatically wrap if it is long.

Assigning a Task

You may change the assigned user of a task by selecting the new user from the “Assign User” pull-down list in the “View Task” screen. Jalot “guesses” at the likely users to be assigned to a task by listing them in the pull-down list. If the desired user does not appear in the list, select “Choose User…” from the pull-down and choose from the larger list of all of your known users. To prevent task spam, you cannot assign a task to a user that you do not know.

If you assign a task to a user, you give that user permission to view and modify the task, even if they do not have permission to view tasks within the task’s list. This permission continues even if the task is subsequently assigned to another user.

When changing assignment, a note is automatically placed in the task’s history; users who are watching the task will be notified that the task’s assigned user has changed. If the newly assigned user was not watching the task, it will automatically appear on their main screen.

Closing a Task

A task may be closed – usually meaning completed, but can also mean “no longer relevant” – by clicking on the “Close Task” link in the “View Task” screen. Once closed, a task may no longer be modified or have comments added to it; a task must be re-opened in order to make changes. If you ignore a closed task and it is subsequently re-opened, it will automatically reappear on your main screen. (NOTE: Currently, this is only true if you are the assigned user.  This is a bug).

When closing or re-opening a task, the task’s history is automatically updated and other users watching the task are notified of the change in the task’s status.

Modifying a Task’s Name or Description

Clicking on the “Edit Task” link in the “View Tasks” screen will open an editing window to allow the task’s name and description to be updated. After saving changes, a note will be added to the task’s history to notify other users watching the task that changes have been made. The prior version of the task’s name and description are not saved in the system; the new name and description overwrites the prior versions.

Deferring Tasks

If a task is not currently being worked on, it may be deferred to a later date. Deferring a task removes it from the “Your Tasks” window, which helps keep that important window to a manageable length. It also lets the other users watching the task know that the task is not currently being worked on. On the specified date, Jalot will automatically re-activate the task.

A task may be deferred by clicking on the “Defer Task” link in the “View Tasks” screen. This will bring up a calendar to select a date at which the task will become un-deferred. Rather than selecting a date, you may also select “Indefinitely” to defer a task until explicitly activated; indefinitely deferred tasks are sometimes referred to as “maybe someday” tasks.

The “Defer Task” link can also be used to change the date at which an already deferred task will become active, or can be used to activate a deferred task prior to the activation date by selecting “None” as the date.

When a task is deferred, or later when the task is re-activated, a comment is automatically added to the task, notifying other users watching the task about its change in status.

Ignoring a Task

A task may be ignored – removed from the main list of tasks you are watching – by selecting the task and clicking “Ignore” on the main screen. You can also click on “Ignore” while viewing the task in the View Task screen.

If you ignore a task assigned to you, it will only be ignored until the next time you log in.

Unlike most actions in Jalot, other users watching a task are not notified whether you are ignoring or watching a task, nor is ignoring a task added to the task’s history.

Watching Task Lists

Creating Task Lists

Inviting Others to Task Lists

Task List Management

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