The module shows tasks in 4 separate tabs according to this classification:

• Inbox - all tasks that were assigned to you
• Outbox - all tasks that you have assigned to your colleagues
• Visible - all tasks that are assigned to someone else but you were invited to participate in
• Watch - all tasks that you have marked as "favorite" because you want to have quick access to them

The basic parameters of a task are:

• Title - short description, shown in the main listing
• Body - the full details about the requested service
• Responsible - who the task is assigned to
• Deadline - pretty obvious
• Result - provided by the responsible person
• Status - the current state of the task

Each task has only one assignee but when a supervisor wants to assign the same task to more than one person - these tasks are grouped together in a group of their own. Everyone sees only his own task in the Inbox but also knows how many employees the original task was addressed to.

Besides the basic parameters there are others:

• Tags - since a task can not reside in more than 1 folder at the same time tags are used to simulate a folder-like structure
• Attachments - usually the expected result for a task is in text form but sometimes the result is in the form of files (PDF, DXF, XLS or something else)
• Resolution - the author of the task is required to provide a signal whether the result is acceptable or not; if the result is unacceptable the task will be automatically reassigned
• Informative - since the Task Manager is the primary communication method inside the ERP it is often used to inform about anything new inside the company (new rules, changes in the organization, events, etc.) - these tasks are not tracked for violations of the deadline
• Secret - usually each supervisor has access to the tasks of his/her subordinates. Sometimes however there may be something confidential (e.g. HR manager is discussing the salary for a new hire) and so if a task is flagged as secret then nobody else (even the Super Admin) has access to this task except the author and the assignee
• Personal - the ERP does not prevent you from assigning tasks to yourself; in such cases you are allowed to change the deadline as needed

Each task may have additional related entities:

• Comments - usually the responsible person reports his/her partial progress through a comment; comments are also used when other employees are participating in someone else's task
• Questions - these differ from a comment by requiring an answer within the provided deadline; anyone of the participants may ask a question to anyone else
• Approvals - when the execution of the task requires spending some money the responsible person always seeks an approval by the supervisor of the author of the task; the approval request can be also initiated by the author herself
• Requests for new deadline - both tasks and questions have a deadline but the recipient is allowed to ask a new deadline and the author is free to either accept or decline the request

There are dedicated requests for design/engineering services but sometimes there are things that can only be presented as a task - e.g. when an engineer visits the client onsite to take some measurements or when a designer outlines a very preliminary visualization. In such cases the task is attached/related to the specific project of a customer and the amount of hours spent is logged.

Besides the obvious features of an integrated Task Manager (helping you not loosing the tracks) the ultimate goal is to track the efficiency of each department. This is accomplished by the so called inter-company invoices - the departments have standard price-lists for the services they usually provide (or they negotiate the price for any non-standard service) and so each task has a price. In the end of each month an automatic report shows the "income" and "outcome" per each department (including the salaries of its members) - so if there is no "profit" something has to be done.
This way of working is of great help to all the department chiefs - it encourages reducing the costs by working more efficiently and seeking to provide only the services that are in demand. This is much like being an entrepreneur.
Of course if a department overprices some (or all) of its services the other departments are allowed to look for outsource and this may eventually lead to shrinking of a department or even completely outsourcing it.

Supervisors often need to assign the same task periodically - either to themselves or to their subordinates. Instead of playing with shared Google calendars and phone reminders the ERP supports such functionality out of the box. The recurrence may be on annually, monthly, weekly basis, each first/last week or once per X days. On the given date the task (or tasks if it is for a group of recipients) will be automatically created and assigned. Recurrence of a template can be changed at any time but will reflect only the future tasks.

Department chiefs are required to ensure that all tasks assigned to their department are promptly serviced. This report is used by the top management to check for some "violations" like:

• A deadline has passed but the task is not yet completed or the question is not yet answered
• A comment or a question has not been marked as "read" by the recipient within 24 hours
• The author has not provided a resolution about the result of the task (either accept or deny) in a timely manner
• A task which has been assigned but is not marked as "confirmed" within 24 hour

A supervisor is allowed to impose a penalty for any of these (or provide a description of the violation in free text if it is not among the predefined ones).
The report takes into account weekends/holdays and approved vacations.

The complete history of all changes is maintained - uploading a file, deleting a file, changing the title and/or the body, changing the list of participants, adding comment/question/approval request, requests for changing the deadline, etc. If the assignee agrees with the deadline and has started working on the task but the author suddenly updates his request - it will be clearly visible.