We take as example the task “Requirements” from the analysis phase of our project “Substitution of the commission settlement system”. This task is to compile the functional requirements for the new system and have them checked by the financial department.
First you create the task “Requirements” by selecting File New Task in the top menu of the project phase “Analysis”. As contractors you take two project members who are going to compile the requirements document and a representative of the financial department who is authorized to approve the requirements and whom you have invited to the project. As requestor you enter yourself. As input data you choose under Data coming from main or peer tasks the output documents of the tasks “Expert interviews” and “Workshops”. As output data you define under New output data a data field “Functional requirements definition” of type document and a data field “requirements approved” of type check box.
Because of your specification of the input data, the task “Requirements” can only start after the tasks “Expert interviews” and “Workshops” have been finished and the minutes of the expert interviews and workshops have been released. If you do not want this ordering of task execution, simply do not enter any input data for task “Requirements”. Its contractors may then access the results of the other tasks in the current version as members of the project, and task “Requirements” may be started independently of the other two.
Now you split the task “Requirements” in two subtasks, the compilation of the requirements and their approval. You switch to task view and select File New Task in the top menu. As name of the new subtask you enter “Requirements compilation”, as contractors you select the two project members foreseen, as input data you select under Data coming from main or parent tasks the input data of the main task “Requirements” (if any), and as output data you select under Data needed by main or peer tasks the output document “Functional requirements definition” of the main task “Requirements”.
Again select File New Task in the top menu. Enter “Requirements approval” as name and select the representative of the financial department as contractor. As input data you select under Data coming from main or peer tasks the output document “Functional requirements definition” of the peer subtask “Requirements compilation” just created, as output data you select under Data needed by main or peer tasks the check box “requirements approved” of the main task.
This way you have divided the task “Requirements” into two subtasks which executed one after another do the job of the original task. The two subtasks appear in the ‘Contents’ section of the task view under “Tasks…”. The delivery relations between the tasks are shown in the description of the subtasks and in the ‘Properties’ section of the task view of the main task.