Step 8. Tracking translation agency tasks

Filter Bar

Tracking of tasks in the translation agency solution is important thing as the management needs to know which tasks in common to-do list are currently being executed by each resource, when these tasks were assigned, which task are overdue now, etc. And as time goes by and number of tasks raises, task tracking may become not so easy thing.

VIP Task Manager has Filter Bar which allows to filter tasks and make to-do lists much easy to track by the managers. The Filter Bar is divided into four task field categories: Common (Name, ID, Status, etc.), By Date (Date Range, Date Created, etc.), By Resource (Owner, Assignment, Department) and Custom Fields (included all available custom fields). The agency management can use filter to track tasks by resource name, due date, status and more. For example, to monitor all incomplete tasks concerned to Customer 1, the supervisor of the translation agency can filter tasks by task group “Customer 1” and statuses “Draft”, “Created” and “In Progress”. The filter settings can be saved to a profile, say “Incomplete Tasks”, so next time the supervisor needn’t to configure filter settings once again – he will just select the profile “Incomplete Tasks”.

Column Status and Complete
Status is one of the most significant task attributes when tracking tasks of the employees. In translation agency solution the column “Status” allows the supervisor to track to-do lists by progress to quickly find out if a task is in draft, created, cancelled, etc. In Task List view the supervisor can get the tasks grouped by dragging this column to the top. To track the progress of task completion (percent of completion), the supervisor can use the column “Complete”. This column is status-concerned that is to each percent of completion corresponds particular status. Such dependency can be configured in Workflow Settings ofVIP Task Manager. For example, the task “Write and translate article” is assigned to the copywriter and translator. When the copywriter composed article, the task gets status “Composed” and the translator starts to translate it. The supervisor can track statuses and be aware who is currently executing the task.

Overdue tasks
Overdue tasks may appear since delaying or putting off tasks the employees need to do. It's okay to procrastinate once in a while. But if an employee of the translation agency does it repeatedly, it can become a problem. The manager needs to control negative aspects of overdue and procrastinated tasks and the employee needs find ways for better organizing daily work.

In VIP Task Manager all overdue tasks are highlighted with orange colour so they can be quickly and easily noticed and the employee will be able to take measures. When assigning to-do list to the employee, the manager can set up task reminder which alerts the employee with pop-up window or email message. The reminder can be set before Due Date/Finish Date/Start Date of the tasks. For example, the “Issue invoice for PO” is overdue. The accountant of the translation agency has delayed it for some reasons. The manager can easily detect the task (VIP Task Manager highlighted it with orange) and increase priority to Urgent. He can prevent overdue task by setting reminder for that task so next time the accountant won’t forget to issue invoice.

1. Step 1. Choosing translation agency software
2. Step 2. Organizing translation agency staff
3. Step 3. Building translation agency workflow
4. Step 4. Translation agency task customization
5. Step 5. Task planning in the translation agency solution
6. Step 6. Sharing translation agency tasks
7. Step 7. Documenting translation agency tasks
8. >> Step 8. Tracking translation agency tasks
9. Step 9. Reporting tasks in translation agency solution
10. Step 10. Managing KPI in translation agency solution