Change task completion check marks

[mbonitati]

Tasks for Change Processes/Process Status table show completed tasks with check marks whether someone votes yes or no to indicate that the task has been completed. The checkmark is an easy way to visualize the status and who still needs to perform their task; however, users are looking at it as an approval.  It would be much clearer and easier for users if they saw a thumbs up or thumbs down which would indicated that they completed their task as well as whether they approved or rejected the object.  Our chairpersons believe that the check mark causes confusion when approvers are looking at who has approved a change.  They believe that it can lead to a design escape by letting mistakes through when a reviewer rejects a change, but the task shows a check mark by their name (all based on interpretations of symbols).  The thumbs up/down is a common gesture for approval or disapproval.

[JørnAHansen]

With the "traffic light" feature in Windchill 11 F000 it looks like you can get pretty close to getting this, see

http://support.ptc.com/cs/help/windchill_hc/wc110_hc/index.jspx?id=TypeMgrAttrGraphicalAttr&action=s...

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[DonSenchuk]

My Process Status table does show the voting record.

[mbonitati]

Hi Don

The check mark in the first column just basically shows that the task was completed.  The issue my engineering group is having is they look at that check mark as the voter's agreement/approval vs just completing the task.

[mbonitati]

Will the traffic light feature work for the completion of the task or the votes? Would it replace the check mark?

[JørnAHansen]

You have to do some configuration of a calculated attribute as described in the Help Center page I linked to above. So I guess both would be possible depending on how you configure it ... though I understand from your answer to Don below which one you want, the Vote attribute not the task completion status!

When trying to write this answer I just realized that this graphical aspect with the traffic light alone will still not fix the problem at hand. Sorry I guess I got carried away by your big shiny thumbs up/down icons posted in the idea.

There are two different remaining problems:

• For the Task for Change Process (TfCP) table is lacking the Vote attribute - but - Jeffrey Zemsky recently said there is work underway to add it in the Windchill 11.0 M010 release in https://community.ptc.com/t5/Windchill-Ideas/Add-quot-Vote-quot-and-quot-Comments-quot-to-Tasks-for-....  So I suggest you vote for that idea to! When that is there I would expect the Work Item type (aka Task in the normal UI) to expose a Vote variable which can the be mapped to numerical calculated attributes mapping e.g. "Approved" maps to 2 = Green - and e.g. "Rework" to 0 = Red.
• For the Process Status table already has the Vote attribute. But it is not exposed in the Type and Attribute Manager, as the Work Item type is, and neither is that table view configurable.

Until 11.0 M010 is there, provided it supports what I outlined above, I think your best option is to:

- Hide the check mark in the TfCP table - easy with configuration of the table view.

- Hide the check mark in the Process Status view (requires code customization) or alternatively educate users (equally hard!)

[JørnAHansen]

Um, forget the "vote for Add "Vote" and "Comments" to Tasks for Change Process table view" comment above as that idea has already been marked "Implementation in progress" yay!

[DonSenchuk]

You mean they wont look at the column labeled 'Vote' a couple inches to the left? *sigh* Once again the old adage 'no software will fix bad users' forces it's way to the front.

However, that does bring up something in line with with what you want and very close to current functionality; custom views of the Process Status table. Then you would be able to move the 'Vote' column as the first one and just eliminate the 'Check Mark' column altogether. I mean, we can make table views nearly everywhere else in Windchill but not here? It makes no sense.

Or add the 'Vote' column to the 'Task for Change Process' table. We can customize that table but the column selection is strangely sparse.

[mbonitati]

I totally agree with you.  I've always preached that we can't make the tool idiot-proof.  I think the confusion here is 1) the Task for Change Process (which the chief engineer sees first) appears at the top of the screen and it doesn't have the vote.  The chief engineer sees the check marks as approvals vs completing the task.  2) If you scroll down to the Process Status table, it has the vote however you can't customize it to move the columns around.  The confusion that they have with the Vote column is not every task has a Yes/No or Approve/Reject in it.  Some are blank (because they really aren't voting - merely completing a task).  This was just an idea for a more user-friendly system.

[DonSenchuk]

I thought about putting a single routing option of 'Complete' even for those tasks that are just 'Complete Task' without an actual vote just to head off any of that confusion. Anyway, the more I looked into it the more lacking the OOTB implementation is for this sort of thing.

[STEVEG]

You can somewhat customize the Process Status table.  You can just drag the Vote column to wherever you want.

I know that is of little consequence since the vote is not in the Task for Change Process table but it's something.  (Trying to find the silver lining)

[DonSenchuk]

I'm going to say this should be added to David's Creo Daily Grind post, except it's about Windchill.

Virtually every single other instance of a table in Windchill requires one to create a custom View to move columns around. But this one, no. This one you can drag and drop the columns.

edit: clarification

[olivierlp]

Hello,

We are archiving your idea as part of a general review. This action is based on the age of your idea and the total number of votes received, as per this announcement.

You can always post a new idea with all the details required in the form.

Thank you for your participation.