TMGR: Incorrect Grouping Using Status and People Assigned (155532)

MORE INFORMATION

In an ungrouped task tabular view, such as Task Organizer, tasks with one or more people assigned to it show up as folders that can be expanded to reveal the people corresponding to each assignment. The Status field shows the status of the task and the status of each assignment. For example, if some assignments are completed on a task, and some are not, then the task status is "In progress."

Views, such as Task Organizer, can be grouped by up to three categories. For example, to display the Task Organizer view grouped By Status and then By People Assigned, do the following:

1. On the View menu, point to Grouping, and then click Custom Grouping.
2. In the Custom Grouping dialog box, select Status from the Group By list, select People Assigned from the Then By list, and then click OK.

This displays a multi-level outline structure. The highest level group headings correspond to each of the possible Status values: "Status: Not Started," "Status: In Progress," and so on. Under each Status heading, all the team members are listed with headings like "Person: Joe Smith." For each specific task, the task is listed under each person assigned to that task, but only under the one Status group corresponding to that task's Status, rather than the Status group corresponding to the assignment status.

The following example illustrates the behavior.

Suppose the following table is from the Task Organizer view with no active grouping:

    ID       Task Name               Status
    -----------------------------------------------------
    1        Task1                            In progress
                 Joe                          Not started
                 Mary                         Completed
    2        Task2                            Not started
                 Mary                         Not started
				

Here is part of the table after grouping By Status and then By People Assigned:

    ID       Task Name                        Status
    -----------------------------------------------------
             Status: Not started
                 Person: Joe
                 Person: Mary
    2                Task2                    Not started
                 Person: (Unassigned work)

             Status: In progress
                 Person: Joe
    1                Task1                    Not started
                 Person: Mary
    1                Task1                    Completed
                 Person: (Unassigned work)

             Status: Completed
                 Person: Joe
                 Person: Mary
                 Person: (Unassigned work)
				

Note the following potentially confusing behavior:

• Although Mary has completed Task1, Task1 is listed under Mary under "Status: In progress," rather than under Mary under "Status: Completed." That is because it groups Task1 according to its status, not the status of the assignment.
• Although the Status of Task1 in the ungrouped view is "In progress," the Status field in the grouped view contains "Not Started" for one of the rows containing Task1, and "Completed" in the other. That is because the Status field in this grouped view is really assignment Status, not task Status.