Gantt LWC - Assign Project Tasks

Last Modified On: November 11, 2024

Once you've created a Project Plan, you can then begin to assign project tasks to resources. In Inspire Planner, a resource is the person (user or contact) who is responsible for completing the task. Project Tasks can also be assigned to a queue in Salesforce.

For context, a user is someone who has login access to Salesforce. This would typically include internal employees who are able to log in to your Salesforce org. A contact is someone who does not have login access to Salesforce. For example, you may be working with an external contractor or a client on a project. The external contractor and/or client does not have the ability to log in to Salesforce. A queue in Salesforce acts like a holding place or bin for records that have no owner. You can choose to assign tasks to a queue and members of the queue can take ownership of a task. For example, imagine you have a Development Team responsible for a set of tasks within the Project. You can choose to assign the tasks to your Development Team queue and members of the queue can then choose to take ownership of the tasks.

When a Project Task is assigned to a user, contact or queue, a related Salesforce Task is automatically created. For more information on how Project Tasks and Salesforce Tasks relate to each other, please see Inspire Planner Project Tasks and Salesforce Tasks.

Salesforce users are able to see and update their assigned tasks either directly from the Project (if they have been given editing permissions) or from their Salesforce Tasks. 

Contacts can only see the project and their assigned tasks through the Inspire Planner External Project Portal, when they are added as a project collaborator. For more information, please see Gantt LWC - Share Projects by Adding Project Collaborators and Using the Inspire Planner External Project Portal.

Tasks assigned to a queue are visible to all members of the queue. For more information, please see Assigning Tasks to Queues

This help article will walk you through how to (you can click on a topic to jump to that section):

• Manually Assign Project Tasks
• Automatically Assign Project Tasks 
• Adjust Allocation of Planned Effort Between Resources
• Remove Assigned Resources (un-assign tasks)

Manually Assign Project Tasks

Manually assigning a task means that you are assigning tasks to users one-at-a-time.

1. To assign a project task, double-click on the "Assigned To" field. Then, click on the edit icon.
   
   
    
2. The Task Assignment Dialogue will open. Enter the name of the user, contact or queue in the search box. Select where you would like to search for the resource - in users, contacts or queues. Then, click on Search.
   
   
    
3. Resources that match the name you entered will be displayed. Select the resource and click on Assign Task.
   
   The "Type" column will tell you if the resource is a user, contact, or queue. This is helpful when you have users and contacts with the same name. 
   
   
   
   You will see that the resource you selected is now displayed in the "Assigned (Salesforce Tasks)" section below.
   
   
   
   If you would like to assign the same task to another resource, you can search for another resource and add them. All resources you selected will be displayed in the "Assigned (Salesforce Tasks)" section.
   
   Click on OK to close the window.
   
    
4. The assigned resource(s) are now displayed in Assigned To. You will need to save the project to save your task assignments.
   
   
   
   Once you've assigned a project task to a resource (user, contact, or queue), they now become a part of your project team. This means that if you need to assign project tasks to them within the same project, you don't need to search for them again. Their names will now appear as resource options in the picklist, when you double-click on the "Assigned To" field. This makes it quick and easy for you to assign project tasks. 
   
   Double-click on the "Assigned To" field and click on the dropdown arrow. This will display the existing project team members in a picklist.
   
   
   Simply select the user, contact, or queue to assign the project task to them. You can select multiple resources if needed. Click on Save to save your changes.
   
   

Automatically Assign Project Tasks

A quicker, more efficient way to assign project tasks to resources is to populate the project task multi-role. When you create project team members with the same role, Inspire Planner then automatically assigns the project tasks to the project team members.

For more information, please see Auto Assign Tasks to Project Team Members.

Adjust Allocation of Planned Effort Between Resources

Once project tasks have been assigned to resources, you can define what percentage of planned effort the assigned resource is responsible for. 
 

Inspire Planner allocates 100% of the planned effort to each resource as a default. This means that if you have the Project Task Planned Effort set to 6 hours, and you have 2 assigned resources at 100% each, then the project task has a Total Allocated Effort of 12 hours (6 hours x 2). See example below.

Please note:

The rollup of Total Allocated Effort is done by the Inspire Planner Beacon. This means that when you populate or edit task assignments, planned effort or % allocation, you will need to wait for the Beacon to run to see the updates in Total Allocated Effort. This can take up to 2 minutes.

To adjust the % allocation of planned effort for the assigned resource, double-click on the "Assigned To" field and click on the dropdown arrow.

You will see the percentage in units beside the assigned resource's name. Edit the value and click on Save when finished.

Always remember to save your changes by clicking on the Save Project Plan icon in the Project Toolbar on the left.

Inspire Planner references the project task planned effort, % allocation and task duration when plotting utilization in Resource LWC. For more information, please see Resource Lightning Web Component (Resource LWC).

Remove Assigned Resource

If an assigned resource needs to be removed, perhaps because the resource is no longer available, or you wish to assign the task to someone else, you have the ability to remove them from the project task.

To remove an assigned resource, simply double-click on the "Assigned To" field and click on the dropdown arrow. 

Next, deselect the resource you would like to un-assign from the project task. Click on Save  when finished.

Please note the following:

• Deleting the project team record of a resource will automatically un-assign project tasks from the resource, where the project task role and project team role match. If project tasks are manually assigned to a resource, deleting the project team record will not un-assign the task from the resource.
   
• When un-assigning project tasks from a resource, if the related Salesforce Task does not have time entries, it is deleted when the Inspire Planner Beacon runs. However, if the related Salesforce Task has time entries, it is not deleted but the assigned resource will not display in the project task "Assigned To" field.
   
• Deleting the related Salesforce Task will un-assign the resource from the project task.

For help with other questions, check out our Inspire Planner Help tab for more How-To Guides and Community Q&A. If you still cannot find what you need, log a Help Ticket and someone from our Inspire Support Team will get back to you.