Why Use Todo Sage?
After using a bunch of project management tools we built Todo Sage to encompass what we liked about each one, and left out the things we didn't like.
Todos
Ideally, a task is a single task. However, as you get input, or work on the task, sometimes things change. So here is why our todos have the features they do.
Todo descriptions - This seems like a no brainer to have, however they are implemented in multiple ways. Some the description is a comment that can't get modified after a while, some are dedicated sections. With TodoSage, the task description is it's own dedication section. This way the scope of the task is always at the top, and when things get changed from commenters below, you can update it to refelct what should be happening.
Tasks - The point of a todo is to be able to complete an item and mark it complete. Unfortunately, when coworkers or clients start commenting on tasks you get a bit of scope creep. By allowing you to add tasks, to your todo, all these changes can be added and tracked if they were completed or not. A task is a single line "todo" without a description. While we encourage our clients to only make todos, the reality is sometimes you need to flag additional tasks in a todo.
Meta Fields - Sometimes it's handy to flag important details outside of the comments or description. As you are a software development company, we like to have a meta field to tell us what branch of code a todo is being worked on in. As an adiministrator you can add meta fields to collect any additional information you want about a todo.
Time Tracking - There are countless time tracking applications out there. Some even integrate with your project management tool. We have time tracking built in. Use it to track billable hours, or to understand how your employees are working. We automatically over an estimate field and with our reports you can see if you were over the amount of time you estimated a todo to take.
Pricing
Pricing can get complex or ballooned out of control with project management systems. Some charge you per user. Do your clients count as users? Some systems charge per project. Todo Sage made the decision to charge you a flat fee. Invite all your employees and clients without having to worry about justifying the cost.
Kanban Boards
A Kanban Board is a visual tool to help understand your todos, and what's in progress. As you work through todos you change the stage and it moves what column on the board they are in. Think of having a white board with sticky notes on it with different statuses. One column is the "Todo" stage. Something that needs to be done but hasn't been started yet. When you start working on it, you move it over to the in-progress stage. Once done, you move it to the done stage.
Kanban boards give you a quick understanding of what's being worked on. You aren't limited to "Todo", "In-progress" and "Done". You can add as many stages as you want.
Book Writing Example - If you were writing a book, and each chapter was a todo, here an example set of stages you could have would be:
- Backlog (not yet moved to a stage)
- Outlining
- Writing
- Illustration
- Editing
- Done
Each chapter would be it's own todo and would start in the backlog. The backlog is the default area and these tasks are typically not shown on the board.
When you start working on a chapter, you would move it from the backlog to the Outlining stage. Here you are outlining what goes in the chapter.
After you are done outlining, you move the todo to the Writing stage. Here you are writing the actual chapter.
Once done, you move it off to the Illustration stage so the illustrator knows it's ready for their part.
After the illustration is done, the illustrator moves it to Editing for the editor to take over
Once done editing you move it to the Done stage and it's automatically marked complete.
By granting the publisher, illustrator and editor access to the project, they can view the kanban board and understand where you are at in the book process.