Collaber

Web Application - Using Task Tool

Overview

        David and Dennis were developing a web application, where Dennis had to define the functionality and perform the testing once its developed by David. The mode of communication they were using was attachments in email, as installation and using of a project management is like an over head for such a small project.

Communication using Mail(Obsolete)

• The requirement was that Dennis would define the functionalities in a document and send it to David, now David had to estimate the time required for development of the defined functionalities and send it back to the Dennis for getting it approved.

• Dennis had to review the document to decide whether the functionalities are worth spending the time estimated by David or not, if not he will edit the time required from the document and send it back to David.

• Till now, its ok with the process but the actual tedious process, time consuming and least effective mode of communication starts now, when the development starts, David has to mark the functionalities as finished and send it to Dennis.

• Dennis has to check whether the functionalities marked as finished are working as they are supposed to work or not, if it works he marks it as confirmed otherwise mark it as reopen with comments on it. Send the document back to David, for working on it.

• And this process continues until all the functionalities are marked as confirmed by both David & Dennis. In the whole process they are updating a word document with list of functionalities, and attaching the document in mail to send back and forth.

Difficulty

        After few days of commencement of project, when David started to mark up the functionalities as finished, Dennis noticed some bugs in those finished functionalities. So, Dennis marked those bugs as reopen with comments on it, the frequency of interaction increased and size of attachment increased. Now they got frustrated to wait for uploading and downloading of the attachment. Now they realized that mail is not the appropriate way of communication for their requirement.

        They did a research on how to overcome this problem hampering the productivity of their work. They thought of any alternative communication method to improve their effectiveness & efficiency.
So, they thought of using a software in order to save time. In this modern world, time is considered as the most valuable asset any organization can have. A better software which can help them overcome their problems would be a collaboration software.

        Can any software save the precious time of Dennis and David?

        Both of them discussed this issue with their friends,
colleagues and they have come to know about the task tool from James who is already a user of Collaber which is a virtual collaboration tool.

Solution

        The task tool which james was talking about is “collaber”. this collaber can help them in saving their time and improve the effectiveness of communication. mail is not the only mode of communication available, so we should take enough care while choosing a mode of communication to make sure that it is the best for our
needs. spending time in finding the best solution as per the requirement always pays off in a long run.

        Task tool allows the user to create any number of tasks with relevant issue name(e.g functionality issue, css problems), which can have big description, attachment etc. task tool also provides a way to have fundamental information like to whom the task is assigned, sensitivity of the issue (e.g low, normal, important and critical),
progress status, start date, and duration. changes made in any workspace of collaber will be shared among all the users who are the
members in that workspace.

Applicationof the task tool

        As soon as dennis & David got to know about the task tool, dennis created a workspace with his project name “white market” with all tools in collaber, and sent an invitation to David. this is the way both David & Dennis solved their problem which was eating their valuable time

• Dennis created one task named “functionality issues” and created sub tasks for each of the points they had in the document.

• Now, David got a great flexibility of updating Dennis with the latest information regarding the new functionalities implications and fixing of the bugs, progress status etc.

• Now David implemented one of the task and marked it as completed.

• Dennis got an alert task about the modification done by David.

• Dennis's duty is to test the functionality and mark it as confirmed in its description if its according to the requirement.

• But after testing Dennis noticed one combobox is missing which was mentioned in the description earlier. so to convey this message to David he doesn't need to send an attachment, he just needs to open the same task and should mark it as 50% completed, and also write the reason “filter by” combobox is missing in the description of the task.

• Now, the developer David got an alert task that the task has been modified by Dennis. he opened the task and in description he found dennis's comment “combobox is missing”.

• David added the required combobox and again marked as completed, then Dennis got the alert task about the modification done by David.

• Dennis tested again and found every thing correct and commented as confirmed in its description for further reference purpose. david opened the task as he got alerted by collaber and found the task is confirmed by dennis.

• Now Dennis created another task named “css problems” to note the css issues in the website.

        Now both Dennis and David have become productive with this mode of communication and also, they are saving lot of time getting rid of unnecessary attachments.