When we are in a project, we need to make plans, there are usually two ways to do it: The first is to use a software like Microsoft Project, this kind of software have rich features, but there is one downside which I don't like: they are too heavy, it is different to embbed the project plan into a text file like Markdown file; The second is to utilize the table syntax to write the plan directly in a markdown file. Personally I prefer the second approach: it is pure text, you do not rely on any special app to display it; It also has its downside, it is hard to maintain:
- If you want to change the scheduled time for on of the tasks, you need to re-schedule all the tasks after it.
- You can not see all the resource usage for the whole project like what
Microsoft Projectdid. - You cann't filter the tasks according to some perticually critera.
This tiny software is to solve the above issues.
scheduler.py [-m <man>] -e /path/to/work-breakdown-file.markdownThe input file for the command line tool is a markdown file(see test_en.markdown for an example), you can define the tasks of your project in a file, e.g.
# Task basic info
* ProjectStartDate: 2014-08-21
# task breakdown
* task1 -- 2[James]
* task2 -- 1[Lucy]
* task3 -- 1[James]
* task4 -- 2[Lucy]The above file defines that the project starts from 2014-08-21, and defines the tasks of the project, now run the following command, we get an auto-scheduled project plan(If you use a Fixed-Width Font you will find that the table generated is well aligned)
> ./scheduler.py -e /tmp/test.markdown
Task | Developer | Man-days | Start Date | End Date | Progress
----- | ---------- | -------- | ---------- | ---------- | ----
task1 | James | 2.0 | 2014-08-21 | 2014-08-22 | 0%
task2 | Lucy | 1.0 | 2014-08-21 | 2014-08-21 | 0%
task3 | James | 1.0 | 2014-08-25 | 2014-08-25 | 0%
task4 | Lucy | 2.0 | 2014-08-22 | 2014-08-25 | 0%
>> Total mandays: 6.0, Finished mandays: 0.00, Progress: 0.00%You may have already noticed that if you save the output into a markdown file, the content is actually a table. i.e. **You only need to maintain the task list and how much time every task takes, this software will auto-schedule the plan for you.
As time flies, you need to update the status of each task, we support to update the status in the task breakdown file, e.g.
# Task basic info
* ProjectStartDate: 2014-08-21
# task breakdown
* task1 -- 2[James][100%]
* task2 -- 1[Lucy][80%]
* task3 -- 1[James]
* task4 -- 2[Lucy]re-run the command, you get a new updated plan:
> ./scheduler.py -e /tmp/test.markdown
Task | Developer | Man-days | Start Date | End Date | Progress
----- | ---------- | -------- | ---------- | ---------- | ----
task1 | James | 2.0 | 2014-08-21 | 2014-08-22 | 100%
task2 | Lucy | 1.0 | 2014-08-21 | 2014-08-21 | 80%
task3 | James | 1.0 | 2014-08-25 | 2014-08-25 | 0%
task4 | Lucy | 2.0 | 2014-08-22 | 2014-08-25 | 0%
>> Total mandays: 6.0, Finished mandays: 0.00, Progress: 46.67%If you want to check out all the tasks assigned to James, add a -m param:
> ./scheduler.py -m James /tmp/test.markdown
Task | Developer | Man-days | Start Date | End Date | Progress
----- | ---------- | -------- | ---------- | ---------- | ----
task1 | James | 2.0 | 2014-08-21 | 2014-08-22 | 0%
task3 | James | 1.0 | 2014-08-25 | 2014-08-25 | 0%
>> Total mandays: 6.0, Finished mandays: 0.00, Progress: 0.00%During a project, it is almost inevitable that someone will ask for leave for some time, but the plan is already scheduled? how? re-schedule the plan manually? No! Just record the vacation record(take a look at the vacation section):
# Task basic info
* ProjectStartDate: 2014-08-21
# task breakdown
* task1 -- 2[James][100%]
* task2 -- 1[Lucy][80%]
* task3 -- 1[James]
* task4 -- 2[Lucy]
# vacations
* James -- 2014-08-22re-run the command again, we get the following plan:
> ./scheduler.py -e -m James /tmp/test.markdown
Task | Developer | Man-days | Start Date | End Date | Progress
----- | ---------- | -------- | ---------- | ---------- | ----
task1 | James | 2.0 | 2014-08-21 | 2014-08-25 | 100%
task3 | James | 1.0 | 2014-08-26 | 2014-08-26 | 0%
>> Total mandays: 6.0, Finished mandays: 0.00, Progress: 46.67%Sometimes we may encounter this kind of issue: A task is made up of several small tasks. e.g. If we are developing an online shopping website, we might have several tasks related with product: Create, Update, Delete, Retrieve, and we want to group these related task together:
# Task basic info
* ProjectStartDate: 2014-08-21
# Basic
* task1 -- 2[James][100%]
* task2 -- 1[Lucy][80%]
* task3 -- 1[James]
* task4 -- 2[Lucy]
## Product
* Create -- 2[James]
* Delete -- 1[Lucy]
* Update -- 1[James]
* Retrieve -- 2[Lucy]
# vacations
* James -- 2014-08-22re-run the command(with a new option: -t) we get:
> ./scheduler.py -e -t /tmp/test.md
Task | Developer | Man-days | Start Date | End Date | Progress
---------------------- | ---------- | -------- | ---------- | ---------- | ----
Basic-task1 | James | 2.0 | 2014-08-21 | 2014-08-25 | 100%
Basic-task2 | Lucy | 1.0 | 2014-08-21 | 2014-08-21 | 80%
Basic-task3 | James | 1.0 | 2014-08-26 | 2014-08-26 | 0%
Basic-task4 | Lucy | 2.0 | 2014-08-22 | 2014-08-25 | 0%
Basic-Product-Create | James | 2.0 | 2014-08-27 | 2014-08-28 | 0%
Basic-Product-Delete | Lucy | 1.0 | 2014-08-26 | 2014-08-26 | 0%
Basic-Product-Update | James | 1.0 | 2014-08-29 | 2014-08-29 | 0%
Basic-Product-Retrieve | Lucy | 2.0 | 2014-08-27 | 2014-08-28 | 0%
>> Total mandays: 12.0, Finished mandays: 0.00, Progress: 23.33%There is more features, try it yourself!