Assigning tasks to multiple users

Feng Office allows assigning a single task to different users! Even though subscribing users could be useful, this would not be as good as being able to properly filter tasks per assignee as then the people would rely on each other and no actual responsibility may be taken for the task per se.

We have already done many experiments with different companies from different industries, and we found this pattern: Lets suppose that James, Marie and Harry have a task for which they all are responsible. If the task gets due and you ask James about it, he would say “Ahh, I thought Marie and Harry would be looking into it”. If you then ask Marie, she would reply “What? Weren't Harry and James onto that?” and lastly, if you ask Harry, he may reply “No no, Marie and James were working there”. Conclusion: ONE responsible person is a must.

That said, we came up with the following solution:

First thing you must do, is enable this option:

  1. Click on your name (top right corner) and select Settings
  2. Go to Settings and then General
  3. Scroll down and look for the Allow multiple assignees for tasks option.
  4. Enable the option
  5. Save the changes
  6. Press F5 to refresh the data (just in case)

From now on, whenever you create a task you will count with the possibility of quickly creating subtasks for other users. Please note the Create subtasks for other people button at the add/edit task form.

In order to create the subtasks, first type in the data for actual task your colleagues will be working on, and then click on Create subtasks for other people to add a new subtask, as shown below. The subtask will have the same description, start date and due date than the main task, and by default the same estimated time as well. The name of the task will be the same, except for the Subtask of: legend, but of course you may change the title anytime you wish to.

In the following screenshot, we can notice that Alberta Anderson has been assigned with the same task using this feature:

Important tips to take into account:

  1. The person who creates the task and subtasks will be subscribed to them by default, and so will the assignees.
  2. In case you have set up groups of users, you can assign the task to a group instead, and then a subtask will be created for each of the users that belong there.

Note: This feature is only available for the Professional Edition