Cityspace Tasks Database
Background
The Cityspace tasks database enables departments within the company to effectively track time spent on projects so that they may create budgets that accurately reflect the time that needs to be spent by resources such as development and design. I wrote the application in classic ASP with a SQL Server 2000 backend, and used DHTML, JavaScript and CSS for the layout.
Login
All users have to login to the system before they can use it. Login details are stored in a cookie to save users from having to enter them each time. Different users have different levels of access rights (either Administrator rights or normal User rights), which govern, amongst other things, the default view they are presented with after logging in. Each department within the company gets a personalised view of the system, ensuring that different departments only see those projects and personnel that are relevant to them.
Projects
The projects view is the default view for Administrators. Here they are presented with a summary list of all the projects in the system, with a colour to indicate their status or priority. The summary also shows the total budget and variance for each project. Administrators can click the edit button by a project and update further details about the project as it progresses and keep notes. The administrator also has access to the individual budget sheet for each project. Users can view the project summary, but cannot edit budget or project details.
Administrators can also create new projects. When it comes to assigning key personnel to the project, each user has their role within the company stored in the system, so that the dropdown lists only contain the names of the relevant personnel for the role in question. The administrator can use the Project Description box to keep notes about the project if required. Once a budget has been created for the project, it will appear on the project detail view.
Tasks
The tasks view is the default view for Users and shows them at-a-glance their workload for the coming days. As with the projects view, tasks are colour coded to indicate status and priority. By default, users see tasks currently in progress followed by completed tasks. There are dropdowns available so that the user may change the way in which his/her tasks are ordered as well as viewing the tasks associated with a specific project or user.
Each User is responsible for entering their own tasks into the system. Some of the data entered for each task is used specifically to generate certain reports, for instance the Process Step enables a report to be produced stating the total time spent on each of Pre-Production, Production, QA and Deployment for a project. As with the projects view, there is a Task Description box for notes about the task if required.
Budgets
The budgets view allows administrators to enter allocated time in days for each resource that will be working on the project. As the users enter tasks against the project and record their time, it will appear in the budget for that project, as will the variance. The total budget and total variance also appear on the default projects view.
Task Time
Every user needs to fill in their time each week for budget tracking purposes. The task time view is designed as a matrix, allowing for ease of updating. It records the total time spent each day, and also on each task over the course of the week. The total weekly time must add up to at least 40 hours, and the user must submit their timesheet once it has been filled in so that it cannot be edited again. This ensures that users don't go back at a later date and reassign time to different tasks. An email is sent to the Project Manager each week to inform them if any users within the department haven't submitted their timesheet.