MLO does not let you assign a task to Frank or let Frank record his completion of the markups. It may be possible for you to share a portion of your profile (the database where your tasks are kept) with Frank and use synch to replicate his updates into your copy of the profile but that's pretty advanced, fairly complex stuff - I'm guessing that you are not ready to take on something of that scale yet.
Two ways of representing the situation you described. First is to create a project with subtasks like -Send document to Frank for review -Wait for Frank's markups -Prepare final draft. In the *Properties* pane for the parent project, click "complete tasks in order". This causes the first uncompleted task to be _Active_ which means Ready for execution, while the remaining uncompleted tasks will be considered _Inactive_ or not ready for execution. So when you look at a to-do report like Active Tasks, you will see the task about sending documents to Frank. When you have sent the documents, click the completion box for that task and it will no longer be shown in the Active Tasks display - its place will be taken by the task about waiting for markups. As long as you are waiting for the markups, the "wait for markups" task will appear in your Active Tasks. When the markups are received, click the completion box for that task and the final draft task will move to Active Tasks. Everything above works no matter what you call the categories. But people usually want to make a few improvements that require a specific category for things you're waiting for. I call mine "@Wait". Once you assign tasks to the @Wait context you can (a) build a report of things you are waiting for, highlighting those that should have completed by now, and (b) make a to-do list that excludes things you are waiting for and just shows the things you should be doing. The other way of representing the situation is to use explicit dependencies instead of the implicit ones that come of completing tasks in order. If you have a simple series of tasks where each task is a dependency for the next, then complete in order works fine. Explicit dependencies are needed when a task is dependent on another task that's in a different branch of your tree, or you have one task that's dependent on several (you need markups from three people before doing the final) or many tasks that can run concurrently but all dependent on the same task (when paycheck clears, pay all my bills). For this you go into the task properties pane, open the dependencies section, and create the specific dependencies. 0Dwight From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of pwilder Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 6:27 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [MLO] How do I create an external dependency? This is probably a really basic question, but I just got an evaluation copy of MLO so I'm at the basic level. One of the features I was counting on is the ability to create dependencies. Specifically, I want to be able to say "I can't do this task until Frank gives me the markups" (or whatever it is Frank needs to do that is blocking me). I see that there's an @OfficeWaiting For context, and that SEEMS to be what I should use, but I don't see a way to say WHAT I'm waiting for and these tasks appear in my To-Do list like all the others. I don't see a way to create a task and assign it to someone else so I can make my task dependent on that one, either. I can't be the only person whose work depends on someone else finishing theirs! How do I create tasks that are dependent on external factors? TIA. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mylifeorganized/-/_85zwEsL-qgJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en.
