I've been experimenting with Storm and it seems like a great module that has nearly perfect functionality for project management, very nice!

But one question - what's the main difference between a task and a ticket? I mean, tickets are assigned to tasks which are assigned to projects, but it seems like one too many levels of heirarchy to me. If I want to get a developer to do something that's relatively small, do I still need to create a project, then a task, then a ticket? It would be nice if there were at least the option of assigning tickets straight onto projects and getting rid of all mentions of tasks. Especially when they seem to function in a very similar way.

If youw anted an extra level of task-within-task (or ticket-within-icket) there's always the option to assign a task/ticket to an existing task/ticket so that it is a 'sub task' or 'sub ticket'. Is that any different in functionlity to a task > ticket relationship?

(Unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible as the documentation still seems to be catching up with the speedy development and I've only just started with Storm.)

Comments

stodge’s picture

Maybe if someone creates five tickets, you could create one task and link all five tickets to it?

flickerfly’s picture

I messed with this same question for awhile and have settled on something that seems to be consistent with the software and quite comfortable. Basically, tickets (for me) aren't a sub of anything. I may be entirely off. I know the developer has studied project management and is building the system around best practices in PM that I have yet to truly study.

Anyway...

I tend to use tickets as a place to put things that aren't really associated with projects. Maybe I have someone call me up and say, hey could you do X. It isn't project related. It's really more of a troubleshooting sort of support task. This way I have tickets that are for support -> user can't work because of X sort of things. (Ex. help me change my email signature) These can be associated with projects and all that, but I tend to think of this as a loose, fyi, this may be related sort of things not a link that needs to be around to get the job done.

Then, in my system, tasks are items that progress a project's end goal. Instead of fixing something that should be working already, they are getting something closer to working than it has ever been before.

It may be worth noting that you may be able to remove tickets from your install if you don't need them for any depends.

flickerfly’s picture

Sry, duplicate post

dbt102’s picture

I use tickets to accomplish tasks.

For example:

Think of building a house (a project).

To do this there are many tasks which logically break down into various trades (architect, electrical, plumbing, carpentry, landscaping, etc..) And then each trade could have subtasks. For example an architect may do a preliminary design and a prefinal design before actually producing detailed construction drawings and specifications for the project. The architect may also actualy be the project manager as well, coordinating all the trades to get his design built, so project managment may be a task as well.

Tickets then would be created to accomplish each portion of the work. A ticket would be created to hire an electrician to perform the electrical work. Each ticket would be associated with a purchase order (which is kind of a contract to pay for the services rendered). When the work is accomplished, the electrician then submits an invoice for payment. When payment is recieved then that ticket is closed.

A well managed project then would be one where all the tickets resulted in all the tasks getting accomplished and a nice house getting built. However, if you wanted to design and build the house all by yourself, you may never want to open up a ticket but Storm could still be useful to you in helping manage all the various tasks involved.

So I think the trick of good project managment is to kind of frame the project with an assortment of tasks using enough detail to successfully complete the project. The level of detail is really determined by the size of the project. I think with Storm you can bury down to 9 subtask levels? That could support a really big project...

Roberto Gerola’s picture

I use tasks to register and schedule only deliverables, not to schedule every single piece of activity.
I use tickets to register requests by the customers and to plan the steps necessary to complete a task.
You can see tickets as your todo list, whilst tasks are the components of your project.

Roberto

Magnity’s picture

Status: Active » Fixed

Marking as fixed based on response in #5.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.