XPlan is designed to help you with the management of projects and tasks.
Each work item is shown as a card in a view called Kanban board. Different custom filters allow you to get the desired perspective on them at any moment.
To check how to get XPlan installed and running, you have the Quick Start Guide at your disposal.
Here below, you’ll get an overview of XPlan key elements and features.
The work items
We will often call all the work items tasks for simplicity, but they can be of any custom type, not only projects and tasks.
So, each work can be of a specific type and some attributes can be set for it, in its edit window.
Each task can be in a specific state, and it’s placed in the Kanban board accordingly, in the relative column. Columns are sorted left to right, representing the progression of the task execution. When the task passes to the next elaboration state you can just drag&drop it in the next relative column.
Some of the set attributes contribute to the automatic and dynamic calculation of the task priority. XPlan uses this priority to vertically sort the tasks in each column, letting the tasks with higher priority reach the top.
State customization
Of course, you can customize the columns of the Kanban board.
You can set an unlimited number of states, according to your needs and sorted by progression.
Each state can belong to one of the three basic system types: open, progress, and closed.
Work item types and hierarchies
Tasks can be hierarchically organized, thus allowing sub-tasks. You can specify the task parent/s in its edit window. Date restraints will be automatically propagated downward, through the hierarchy, and efforts will be automatically added upwards.
Also, work item types can be customized.
As you can see, you can set a hierarchical level for each type. This way, XPlan will prevent incoherent hierarchies of subtasks. However, you can define more than one type for the same hierarchical level so, for example, distinguishing among different kinds of actual tasks.
Using filters – that we’ll soon see – you can easily get the perspective on your work at the desired level, as in the example below.
Search and filters
Besides plain text search, XPlan allows accurate filtering, by means of visual composition or a powerful yet intuitive syntax. For example, you can filter the tasks of the day as follows:
type<>area and type<>project and startdate<>future and statetype=progress
You can also save default views, accessible through the left panel, for quick filtering.
The search bar displays the preset filter on the left and an additional search box on the right.
The yellow edit button on the right gives access to the visual composition of the additional filter.
At any moment, you can prefix all: in the search box and overwrite the current preset filter anyway.
Use the help button near the search box (or press F1 in it) for a detailed guide about searches and filters.
Your data
XPlan saves your data in a single database file, on your PC, and you can ask XPlan to make automatic backups.
Of course, you can also export your data in different standard formats.
And don’t forget…
…to use the right-click!
Android viewer
To help you bring your tasks around, XPlan Viewer for Android is also available.
Since offline access is a key advantage of XPlan, data are synchronized with the mobile device via Wi-Fi.
More…
The help integrated into the application will provide more details.
For any doubt or question, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@xplan-taskmanager.com.