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Rookie questions on spreadsheet and gantt tool


SMontel

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Posted

Hello ftrack community,

I am actually reviewing the product for an animation studio. I have few beginner questions, maybe you can help me?

Sorting items in the spreadsheet

I don't really understand how the product work to sort items (folders, tasks, etc.) in the spreadsheet.  We like to keep things in a precise logical order,  which is also very convenient for us in order to use the gantt tool properly. The best "method" I found here is to give a number to each item. But, it seems that ftrack always take into account the type of the asset first and then the name... Resulting in this kind of weird hierarchy: attachement ftrack-sort-type.jpg

As you can see task 12-Storyboard Retake is above task 10- Storyboard.

If i switch the type of task 12 (Task Review) to match the one of task 10 (Task Design):  the item task 12 moves to the righ place. 

Am I doing something wrong here? Or did I miss an option that can fix this?

Gantt scheduling

For now, we use Gantter, which is a free gantt tool for Google Drive. It's very simple but it has all the options you can expect to make a smart schedule.  Few things I really miss in ftrack are:

1.  The various dependencies options and task constraints.

2. When you make a change to a task (move it, change his length, etc.) all the linked items to this task are updated. 

It's maybe more a feature request but do you plan to make this kind of updates to the ftrack gantt tool in the future?

New Object that can have a duration

When we plan a project, we like to have on the schedule the different dates of review with the client. But, instead of using a milestone point, we rather have an item with a duration in time (basically like a generic task). This is because a client can take 2, 5 or 10 days to answer and it's very important for us to integrate this fact in our schedules.

In order to do that in ftrack, I created a new type of Object (like Folder, Shot, Task, etc.) in the system settings named Review.  But when I add this new object in my spreadsheet, I can't give him a duration on the schedule.  I didn't find a way to fix this, maybe you can help me?

Slack Integration

The studio use Slack as messenger tool. I wonder If you have planned to create integrations with it? For exemple, to replace email notifications?

 

That's all! Don't hesitate If you have any questions or feedbacks on the way I try to use ftrack. Thank you!

ftrack-sort-type.jpg

Posted

Hi and welcome to the forums!

Sorting items in the spreadsheet

You are correct, the task types are taken into account when sorting in the spreadsheet - which does not always make sense. It has been up for discussion to change this, but not decisions has been made so far.

As an alternative you can enable "Manual sorting" from the configuration cog wheel in the spreadsheet.

Gantt scheduling

Yes, the options for the constraints are bit limited. What you can do however is press down the command (on mac) or ctrl key while moving a task and all the dependent tasks should move as well.

New Object that can have a duration

As of now only tasks can a duration. What you can do however is adding a task for the review and give it a special type (e.g. Client review) to distinguish them.

Slack Integration

This is something that we have been considering but haven't got to it yet. 

Posted

Hello Mattias,

Thank you for your quick answers!

Quote

 

Sorting items in the spreadsheet

You are correct, the task types are taken into account when sorting in the spreadsheet - which does not always make sense. It has been up for discussion to change this, but not decisions has been made so far.

As an alternative you can enable "Manual sorting" from the configuration cog wheel in the spreadsheet.

 

Yes, that what I started to do. But If I move the items manually, can I be sure that the other users will see the spreadsheet the same way I organized it? 

Posted

Another question... 

Okay, let's say I use the manual sort option to arrange my spreadsheet the way I want. Now I want to switch from Hierarchy view to Task view in order to get rid of all the folders/subfolders and have clean view of my schedule:

--> It's a total mess, the Task view don't keep the way I sorted the tasks. 

Is it normal or did I miss something?

Best,

 

Posted
Quote

 

 But If I move the items manually, can I be sure that the other users will see the spreadsheet the same way I organized it? 

 

They would also need to enable the manual sorting option.

 

On 07/07/2017 at 4:13 PM, SMontel said:

Another question... 

Okay, let's say I use the manual sort option to arrange my spreadsheet the way I want. Now I want to switch from Hierarchy view to Task view in order to get rid of all the folders/subfolders and have clean view of my schedule:

--> It's a total mess, the Task view don't keep the way I sorted the tasks. 

Is it normal or did I miss something?

Best,

 

I'm afraid your right - in this case it would not keep the manual sort but simple sort based on the path

Posted

Thank you Mattias for the answers! I have another question...

It seems that I can't use inactive users when I work on planning my projects & ressources. They don't appear in "People" inside the Planning section.  Am I right or did I made something wrong?

Best,

 

Posted
23 hours ago, SMontel said:

Thank you Mattias for the answers! I have another question...

It seems that I can't use inactive users when I work on planning my projects & ressources. They don't appear in "People" inside the Planning section.  Am I right or did I made something wrong?

Best,

 

Planning of disabled users is possible in ftrack 3.5 - and we haven't yet started the roll-out of this version

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