Capturing time between status changes on a task

[LouiseEv]

Hi, Does anyone know if it is possible to capture the time period between specific status changes on a task? In the screenshot I would like the time period from the status change 'Branch Amend' to 'Proof at Branch'. For each projects task the last status will always be Proof at Branch, however the first status could be one of three: Branch Amend, Branch Amend Minor or Amend to Print. My overall aim is to create a report that shows me how long our design team take to do each amend. At the moment I have no way of knowing this unless I go into each project individually and manually work it out. And since we process up to 100 projects a day this just isn't an option. Does anyone have any suggestions? Louise Everitt Mimeo.com, Inc.

[Heather_Kulbacki]

We've created a task custom form with calculated fields to capture the date/time that the task hits each status. Then another calculated field to capture the time between 2 statuses. Since you've got 3 possible first statuses, you'd probably need an IF statement in there to capture the difference. But once you've got that final calculated time difference it's easy to report on.

[Heather_Kulbacki]

I've had a few people ask, so I'm going to post this here... We track the time that a project is in Create Execution. Business Review is the status that indicates Creative Execution is complete for us, so we have 3 calculated fields on the task form. We also use this task on a Kanban board and the task status changes as that task moves across the board. - Creative Execution Start Date IF(Status='CIA',IF(ISBLANK(Creative Execution Start Date),$$NOW,Creative Execution Start Date),Creative Execution Start Date) -- formatted for date/time -- CIA is the key code for our Creative Execution status note: since the calculation for this field (and the next field) references itself. I had to create the field, save the form, then go back into the form and add the calculation. - Business Review Start Date IF(Status='YVX',IF(ISBLANK(Business Review Start Date),$$NOW,Business Review Start Date),Business Review Start Date) -- formatted for date/time -- YVX is the key code for our Business Review status - Creative Execution Cycle Time ROUND(WORKMINUTESDIFF(Business Review Start Date,Creative Execution Start Date)/480,3) -- 480 is the minutes in an 8-hr work day, 3 indicates rounding to 3 decimal points.

[LauraBa]

Hi @Heather Kulbacki‚ - this is exactly what I'm looking for but for the life of me can't follow along to understand how to build it and report on it - do you happen to have screenshots that you could send?

[Heather_Kulbacki]

Hi Laura,

Here's a screenshot of our fields. A couple points to remember in creating these fields

• you'll see the one I have highlighted references itself in the calculation. So you'll need to create a calcualted field, name it, but don't add a calculation yet. Save it, then add the calculation in. Until you've saved that field name, you can't reference it in a calculation.
• since we put this form on a task which moves across a Kanban board, the task status changes automatically. If you're not using a Kanban board, the task status will need to be changed manually to capture each stage that you're looking to track.

Then the last field "Creative Cycle Time" is just a calculation between "Creative Execution Start Date" and "Business Review Start Date" and that "Creative Cycle Time" field can be pulled into a report.

Additionally, we originally came up with this workaround because a user would click "Work on It" on a task or issue, but would have to manually change the task/issue status to capture an actual start date. And we didn't want them to have to do that extra step.

I suspect we'll be retiring this form soon. Now that we have the ability to re-set the "Work on It" button to a "Start Task" or "Start Issue" button within each Team, we're reminding users to click "Start Task/Issue" when they actually start working on something to track the cycle time.

[LauraBa]

Thank you so much Heather :)