With the Task Connector, you can connect your Task or Project Management tool with Meisterplan to compare the effort from the tool with the corresponding allocations in Meisterplan directly in the Information Panel.
About the Task Connector
How the Task Connector Works
To compare planned effort from external Task and Project Management tools with Meisterplan data in the Information Panel, your external tool should be connected to Meisterplan and the corresponding projects via the Task API. You can find more details in the article Connecting Your Tools via the Task API.
- Data in Meisterplan will not be changed by connecting the Task Connector.
- Data in your Tool will not be changed by connecting the Task Connector.
- You can connect each Meisterplan project with another tool, but only one tool can be connected per project.
- Planned effort from your tool will be compared to allocations in Meisterplan in the Information Panel of each project.
How the Task Connector Can Help You
Connect different task and project management tools with Meisterplan and compare the data directly in Meisterplan.
- See at a glance if the effort in the connected tool differs from the data in Meisterplan and adjust your plans accordingly.
- Your teams can continue to work with their preferred tools.
- Your Meisterplan users do not need access to the connected tools to see their data in Meisterplan.
Required User Rights
To be able to view effort from external tools in the Information Panel, you need to have the Link Projects and View Task Details via the Task Connector right under Integration Rights.
Details in the Information Panel
The data from the external tool displayed in the Information Panel is global and will be displayed in all scenarios.
Project Summary
In the Project section, you can find general information on the project:
- The link to the project in the external tool (if it was imported via the Task API)
- The project's finish date in Meisterplan
Allocation Comparison with Meisterplan
This section compares the project-specific effort from the external tool with the allocations in Meisterplan. When the section is collapsed, you can see how many more or fewer days are planned in the external tool, and how many days are without a role or resource match in Meisterplan. When you expand the rows, you can see the detailed differences per role and resource.
For this to work, the people assigned to a task in the external tool must be linked to the respective roles or resources in Meisterplan via the Task API. Missing links are listed in the last row.
Example: In the screenshot above, Julia DiStefano is planned for four more days in Project for the Web than in Meisterplan. Depending on the size and current status of your projects, you can either keep this buffer in Meisterplan or adjust your plans directly in Meisterplan so that capacity is freed up for other projects.
Zoe Fournier and Henry Wang, however, are planned for a significantly larger amount of effort in Project for the Web than in Meisterplan. If this is an unexpected change, you now have the opportunity to speak directly to them. If you, regardless, have to increase the allocated capacity in Meisterplan, this can affect the planning of other projects.
Task Status in the Connected Tool
In this section, you can view the status of the individual tasks in the external tool. You do not need access rights to the external tool.
If there are no role or resource matches in the entire project, the total effort from the external tool will be compared to the total allocations in Meisterplan. As soon as a task assignee in the external tool is matched to a Meisterplan role or resource via the Task API, all tasks are sorted by role or resource. Tasks that have assignees without match are put into the last group, No Allocated Resources.
Completed
Displays all tasks that have been set to done (or the tool's equivalent) in the external tool.
Within Allocations
These tasks are in progress in the external tool, but can be completed by the finish date in Meisterplan. This is based on a comparison between the remaining allocations in Meisterplan and the remaining effort in the external tool from today.
Outside Allocations
These tasks are in progress in the external tool, but cannot be completed by the finish date in Meisterplan. This is based on a comparison between the remaining allocations in Meisterplan and the remaining effort in the external tool from today. The order of tasks is determined by the the order of the tasks in the connected tool.
Example: Zoe Fournier and Henry Wang, who were mentioned in the allocation comparison section, also appear in this section. Here, all of the tasks that cannot be completed with the planned allocation in Meisterplan are displayed, as well as the total effort for each task. You can decide based on the importance of these tasks if the allocations in Meisterplan should be increased, if the tasks should be planned for a different time or if a different person could be assigned the task.
No Allocated Resources
In the connected tool, there is either no assignee or the assignee is not linked to a role or resource in Meisterplan.
Make sure that roles and resources in the Task API are matched so that the effort of these tasks can be compared with the allocations in Meisterplan and grouped under Within Meisterplan Allocations or Outside Meisterplan Allocations.
Example: You can see above that Rishan Kumar was assigned to the task "Review & Analyze". Although he is in the Resource Pool in Meisterplan, he is not allocated to the project Internal Reorganization Project in Meisterplan. Because of this, the five days of effort that are planned in Project for the Web cannot be compared with the allocations in Meisterplan. If he joined the project recently, it would make sense to also allocate him in Meisterplan with the listed amount of effort.
Deleting the Tool Connection
At the top of the Information Panel, you can remove the connection between the Meisterplan project and the external tool:
This will not remove the tool connection itself nor the tool connection with other Meisterplan projects.