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How to set a recurring task without knowing work/duration

Hi, I'm a Project Management director at a marketing & web development company. I'm currently trying to import all of our projects/portfolios/clients, etc. into Clarizen and get the rest of the team ready to use the program. 

Many of our projects involve recurring tasks that cannot be determined by any pre-calculated work/hours. For example, for A client that requests several services: Social media management, email marketing, and a Website Migration, I would create the following 2 projects and sub-projects:

Inbound marketing project

Social media management (sub proj.) >>>Reputation monitoring (sub. proj of SM Management)

Email marketing (sub proj.)

Website migration project

Reputation monitoring requires several tasks that are more like responsibilities- someone for example must always be in charge of scanning the client's various social media channels to ensure that no negative posts are written about the client, and if so, respond accordingly. Often times, whoever is charged with this responsability will set up alerts so that they are notified when certain words or the client's Twitter handle is mentioned, for example. There is really no way to tell how much time someone will spend doing that, yet its imperative that they remember to do it and if we can get an idea of how much time it is taking from their schedule each day, even better. What is the best way to set up recurring or ongoing tasks/duties like this? 

 

Thanks!

Kate C Answered

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We actually have a recurring task object that can be used for these responsibilities. The other option would be using a template for a set period of time, for example 3 months of social media monitoring, and trigger it as needed in your project (milestone template). I would also recommend looking into setting up notification emails using workflow rules if you have critical steps in the project that you want to add extra attention to.

Josh Santos 0 votes
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Hi Josh,

I understand that you have the recurring task object- as of now I've set these tasks up as recurring tasks though something feels off to me about it. How would I know what to set for duration or work, for example, for a recurring task that requires that someone be monitoring these social media channels on a daily basis, for negative activity, if there is no way of knowing how much time it will take from someone's schedule on any given workday? 

 

Thanks,

Kate

Kate C 0 votes
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Well work is easy, how much time does it take them to monitor social activity?  I know it can vary, but I would take an average or best guess since this is just an estimate.  Duration would probably be one day unless you wanted to indicate that they could complete this activity within a range of time (any time during the week, month, etc.).  Are you using time tracking and/or billing hourly?  If so the important piece of the puzzle is making sure the time reporting is accurate on this work.

Josh Santos 0 votes
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