Project Tasks

Project tasks are different from Salesforce tasks, in that they relate directly to PSA projects. Your team can create and manage project tasks at the projectClosed A collection of activities and related items to be managed over a defined time range, such as timecards, expenses, milestones and budgets. level.

In PSA, project task management loosely mirrors the concept of Agile task creation, with point assignment and burn-down. Points can represent time units, complexity factors, or other methods of tracking work. Data in child project tasks automatically rolls up to parents. Percentages are calculated, and statuses are automatically updated as you work through project tasks. You can:

  • Mark project tasks as started or completed.
  • Update project tasks.
  • Create parent and summary child tasks.
  • Create new project tasks.
  • Create preceding and dependent project tasks.
  • Assign resources to a project task.
  • Associate project tasks with a project template.
    When you create a project from a template, project tasks copy to the new project with their project task assignments and dependencies.

If you are a project manager setting up projects in project task management, you can map out your project task hierarchy with parent, child, preceding and dependent tasks. For example, if the project is a software development implementation, you can define parent tasks at the component level, then add more detailed development tasks as child tasks. You can also link the start and completion of development of specific components so that they are dependent on the start or completion of others, or you can link sprint dependencies in this way.

You create the parent summary project tasks first, then the child tasks and then the preceding and dependent tasks. You can then also build Salesforce workflows, approvals and reports around the project tasks.

Warning:

We do not recommend cloning project tasks. Create new project tasks instead.

Gantt and Project Task Gantt use the same objects as PSA project tasks so the project task records are updated. See Gantt Overview and Project Task Gantt (Task Manager).

Project Task Assignments

A project task assignment associates a resource with a project task. You can:

  • Assign named resources or resource roles to project tasks using Gantt or Project Task Gantt. This creates project task assignment records.
  • Use project task assignments to generate resource requests, either open or held against a named resource.
  • Use project task assignments to generate assignments for your resources.
Note:

When you create a project from a template containing project task assignments, any resource requests and assignments related to the project task assignments are copied as well.

Project Task Dependencies

A project task dependency defines the relationship between one task and another. In PSA you can make a task in one project dependent on a task in another project.

Points History and Points Complete History

Points History and Points Complete History objects track changes to the Points and Points Complete fields. These objects are displayed on related lists on the project task.

Task Information 

Each project on the Projects tab contains a Task Summary section, with the following read-only summary fields related to the totals of that project's tasks:

  • Tasks Total Points.
  • Tasks Total Points Complete.
  • Tasks Total Percent Complete (Points).
  • Total Number of Tasks.

For further information, see Project Fields.

Project Task Gantt

You can either manage tasks using project task records, Project Task Gantt, or you can use a combination of each.

Note:

Project Task Gantt displays and formats numbers and dates according to the locale of your Salesforce user. If you have not changed this, the default locale of your Salesforce organization is used. We recommend that you set the same time zone on your computer and the Salesforce User Time Zone field. If you do not do this, Start and End dates of project tasks may change in ways that you do not expect. To change the locale of your Salesforce user, from Setup click My Personal Information | Personal Information.