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Can a user keep tabs on a task/record wothout being assigned to it?


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Needing the ability for a manager to oversee tasks while various team members do their parts as it moves through a recurring monthly process.

If the manager is assigned all tasks they’re responsible for managing, it looks like they have about 240 things to do when that’s not really accurate, making it challenging for the manager to parse out their real to-do’s vs the tasks they’re responsible for but are currently being working on by someone else. If the manager is not assigned to the tasks, it’s difficult for them to monitor the progress of all tasks. 

Example: 

A manager is responsible for 60 client tasks being completed in a month, moving through a kanban board for various stages and assignees doing their part. 

4 other team members have action items for all the tasks at various points. 

How can the manager see progress of their tasks while the action item is with someone else? Basically, the manager needs an accurate view of their actual action items/to-do list and a separate view to see their responsible tasks that are currently with other people. 

In past experience, I’ve found a feature in Basecamp that allows users to “follow” or “oversee” a project, letting them to see when it changes status or assignee, without it being assigned to them. Is there a similar feature for Airtable? 

 

2 replies

mtrebinonixon

Hi Elsie,

In your case, if you only have one Manager that has to supervise all Clients I would recommend to simply create an interface (or View if you are only working on the Data layer) for the Manager to have full visibility. This interface or view should only be accessible by the Manager and not by other team members.

If you have automations that send alerts regarding Task updates, you could include the Manager in them for example as cc’d in the emails.

If there are multiple Managers and the Task/Clients are divided between managers, then I would suggest to craete a new user field called “Manager” to assign this managerial role, and use it to set up the correct visibility and notification dynamics. In this way the Task will not count as the Manager’s To-Do’s.

I’ve led several task management bases and a nice Admin view of Tasks, grouped by their current status, and displaying the owner, due date, and other main information is super helpful. If you’d like we can do a quick meet and I can suggest how I’d structure things, happy to help. Feel free to schedule a meet here: https://calendar.app.google/BDT6pyk35Xk1F9jB8


Mike_AutomaticN
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Hey ​@Elsie!

 

@mtrebinonixon ‘s solution seems about right.
Additional question for you. How many team members are involved per project? Is each of them always involved under the same role? (Eg. Mike is always Designer for every project. Or might Mike be Designer for Project A but Sales for Project B?)

 

Some tweaks could be probably done to the database architecture depending on how you Run the business!

 

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation


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