The above navigation is available throughout Vertabase. Note: Do not bookmark any pages within Vertabase.

Start Page

This page will list projects for which you are a project member, or it will display your Daily Task List, or present your Personal Task Report. This choice of which page is displayed by default can be configured in your user account which is found in the Users section of Vertabase. Using the pull-down menu entitled View you can manually switch among these options at any time.

The View pull-down menu has the following options:

• Daily Task List: Displays your tasks that are due today, in progress, overdue and upcoming. Users may also be able to input time, complete timesheets and complete tasks.
  
  
• Your Projects: Displays your projects.
  
  
• All Company Projects: Displays a list of all projects in the system.
  
  
• Managed Projects: Displays the projects you are managing.
  
  
• Personal Task Report: Provides the functionality of the Global Task Report but only for yourself. This will enable you to perform detailed searches on all tasks assigned to you and save report templates.
  
  

When a project list is displayed, it can be exported as a PDF document by clicking the PDF text link or its icon.

Manage Projects

This page displays a list of projects for which you are currently a project member.

To find a specific project or projects, use the search options available. The default search options include Project Name and Project Number. Click "Show Advanced Search Options" for more search criteria.

Searches are typically performed on the list displayed. Therefore, if the list is currently displaying managed projects the search will only return results from the list of managed projects. Furthermore, search results are saved for the duration of your session, even if you navigate through the rest of Vertabase. Therefore from the search results, you can click to the schedule, timesheets and then the management reports, and still be able to return to the project list and view your most recent search results. To clear the search results and return to the full list of projects, click the All option in the Alphanumeric List. To search all projects, without having to display a list of all projects first, click the checkbox Search All Projects.

To view details for a particular project, click on the project name. There are "Quick Links" as well to project schedules, budgets, issues and documents. Click Est. Net Cost to view budget details. Click the task displayed beside next deliverable to view the schedule.

The Project Calendar icon is located to the left of the project name. Clicking this icon will display a pop-up window showing the timeline of the project's tasks as colored bars on a calendar. Use the drop-down menu identifying the month or click the Past and Future links to change the month. If the checkbox next to the Future link is enabled, you will see each month in its own window upon clicking Past or Future. This allows you to see timelines for several months simultaneously even if the timelines belong to different projects.

The Project Calendar icon is colored to indicate each project's health. Green means the project is healthy (both the schedule and budget are on track). Yellow means the project is at a warning stage (one of the schedule or budget is off-track). Red means the project is critical (both the schedule and budget are off-track). The colored circles under the Project Calendar icon represent whether the schedule is on or off-track and whether the budget is on or off-track.

The percent value shown per project is the Project Percent Complete.

To create a new project, click Create in the submenu below Manage Projects at the top of the page.

Daily Task List

This page displays a list of schedule steps divided into four categories:

• Due Today
• Overdue
• In Progress
• Upcoming

In addition to the categories, the Daily Task List page provides several sort options to help you manage your task list:

• Task start date
• Task due date
• % complete
• Task priority
• Estimated hours
• Actual hours

The task percent (%) complete can be edited if the Percent Complete Type of the corresponding project was defined as Manager Inputted Data and the task does not have any sub-tasks (or if it does, it is not synchronized with its sub-tasks). Click the percentage value to edit it. After clicking the link you can update the percentage by entering a new value and clicking Save. Click the red button with an "X" to cancel a change in the percentage. Only users with permission to complete the task will have the permission to edit the task percent complete.

It is possible to submit timesheet entries for these tasks or complete these tasks on this page. Issues can also be submitted.

To input time for these tasks, submit the following information:

• Work Date: This is the date for which all entries will be added. Timesheet entries on the Daily Task List can only be input for one date at a time.
  
  
• W.T.: This is the Work Type.
  
  
• Hrs: This is the number of hours worked.
  
  
• Desc.: This is the description of the work completed.
  
  
• O.T.: Check this off if the work is considered overtime.

To complete tasks, click the checkboxes on the right-hand side of the page.

When finished, click the Save Changes button. There is one submit button for both of these actions.

It is also possible to Complete Timesheets on this page. When it is time to complete a timesheet, the Complete Timesheet button will appear. Click the button to complete the timesheet and refresh to a new timesheet period. Note: Do not use the Complete Timesheet button to submit timesheet entries or complete schedule steps, make sure to use the Save Changes button, and then complete the timesheet.

To view or add issues for a specific task, click the View/Add link. This will launch a popup window. The popup is split into two frames; submit new issues through the top frame and view the list of issues associated with the specific task in the lower frame.

When adding an issue, do the following:

• Enter a Subject.
  
  
• Select an Owner. Note: Only one owner can be selected through this form (however it is possible to add further owners later through the Issue Tracker.)
  
  
• Enter a Description.
  
  
• Select whether or not to synchronize the participants with the project members. If this option is selected the system will use the project members list to determine the participants on the issue.
  
  
• Select whether or not the issue will be available in the Knowledge Base. The Knowledge Base is accessible through the Search in the Issue Tracker.
  
  
• Select the issue participants. If the participants are synchronized with the project members list, then the Project Members radio button will be selected by default. The Task Members option will add the users assigned to the task to the participant list. Note: This does not synchronize the task members with the participant list. The All System Users option will add all users in Vertabase to the participant list.

When finished, click the Open New Issue button. The popup will refresh and the new issue will appear in the bottom frame of the popup.

The Daily Task List can also be exported to Outlook. For more information click the help icon next to the Export to Outlook option.

Personal Task Report

The Personal Task Report has the same functionality as the Global Task Report but it only displays results for the current user logged in.

Use this page to find your task information across projects.

The search page is divided into four sections:

• Period: Determines the length of time for the search.
  
  
• Group By: Determines how to structure/group the data.
  
  
• Advanced Search: Criteria for searching. These criteria are connected by the "and" operator, therefore each criteria will make the search more specific.



• Columns to View: Define the columns to view in the results.

The following Period options are available:

• By Month
• By Period (date range)
• All

Furthermore, select a Filter to determine the status of the tasks during the time period selected. For example, the option Tasks Starting combined with the period of November 2003 would generate a list of all tasks that started in the month of November, 2003.

The following Filter options are available:

• Tasks In Progress
• Tasks Starting
• Tasks Ending
• Tasks Starting or Ending
• Tasks Completed

The following Group By options are available:

• Current Status
• Project
• Project Portfolio
• Client
• Department
• Office
• Work Type
• Task Type
• Task Priority

When finished, click the Search button to generate results.

Personal Task Report Results

This is the result page for the Personal Task Report. Results are displayed in table format and are sortable by most field names (or headers).

Note: Tasks that have greyed-out start and due dates are synchronized main tasks and therefore are not included in calculating total estimated or actual time. They remain in the report to show that users are working on subtasks with a synchronized main task (and to avoid displaying a report that has gaps in task numbers).

Results may be paginated depending on the pagination setting in the Admin System. Clicking All will display all search results without pagination.

The results can be grouped differently, using the Filters pulldown menu at the top of the page. Those filters include:

• Group by Status
• Group by Clients
• Group by Work Types
• Group by Projects
• Group by Project Portfolio
• Group by Departments
• Group by Offices
• Group by Task Types
• Group by Task Priority

Selecting a particular filter may modify the total amount of data being displayed because in some cases tasks may appear in more than one grouping of data. For example, grouping by department where some tasks are worked on by multiple departments would end up displaying the task multiple times in the report. Choosing a filter will also provide different Totals calculations (i.e. totals by users instead of totals by projects) that are displayed at the bottom of the search results. Note: The Departments working on a task is determined by the Users assigned to the task and the Users' affilitations with Departments. The same logic applies for Offices.

Several options are available for printing.

• Printer-friendly version
• Export to Outlook
• Export to Excel
• Export to PDF
• Export to Google Calendar

A printer friendly version of the report is available by clicking the Print link or icon. This will launch a popup window with all of the report's data. From this page, use the browser functionality to print.

The report can be exported to MS Excel, MS Outlook, and Google Calendar by clicking the respective links Excel, Outlook and Google Calendar or their icons. You can continue to process your data further and use the printing, sharing and other features that these software provide.

A PopOut icon is available to view the report in an alternative format. The PopOut format displays the report in a separate window. This window can remain open while navigating other Vertabase pages and even while logged out of Vertabase. You can use the links in these reports to jump to different project schedules in the main Vertabase window. In this way the PopOut report acts as a navigational aid.

To modify the actual columns displayed, click the select columns to view link. This will launch a popup window, where it is possible to choose which columns to display on the page.

Creating a Personal Task Report Template

The Personal Task Report offers a wide range of possibilities for searching and reporting on your personal task data. The ability to create templates gives you an easily accessible, personalized reference for all your task information. To create a template follow the instructions below.

1. Fill in the necessary search criteria (as if performing a normal search), but do not click the Search button.


2. Give the template a name. In the Report Template section provide a Template Name, and optionally a Description.


3. Choose a Period option. Period options overwrite any time-related criteria selected in the regular search. Period options are also relevant to the current date. For example, a user might select By month in the Period section and select June 2004. If the report is saved with that period as the only time-based criteria, the report would always generate results for June 2004. However, if the user also selected a Template Period Option of This month the report would generate results for the month based upon the reporting date. The reporting date is always the current date (i.e. the date the report is generated.


4. Select the checkbox begin search after saving template to generate report results along with saving the report.


5. When finished, click the Save As New Template button.


6. To use the template, click Start Page while in the Projects section of Vertabase. Then select Personal Task Report from the pull-down menu labeled View. You will find saved templates listed in the pull-down menu labeled Select a Template. Select the appropriate template then click the Search button. This runs the report and displays the results.


7. To edit the template, click Start Page while the Projects section of Vertabase. Then select Personal Task Report from the pull-down menu labeled View. You will find saved templates listed in the pull-down menu labeled Select a Template. Select the appropriate template then click the Edit button. You will notice that a Save Changes button will be available for overwriting any changes made to the saved report. Alternatively you can click the Save As New Template button after editing the template, in order to create a new one. Clicking either button will save the report template, and generate results.