Re: Collaborating with TODO lists and clocks.

[Gareth Smith <gds@doc.ic.ac.uk>]

Thanks for the reply Richard!

Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu> writes:
> Is there a reason you don't want any clock data to end up in the shared
> tasks.org?
>
> If not, one thing you could do is:
>
> 1) When claiming a task, each person uses a tag for their name (in
> addition to, or instead of, just changing the TODO state).  Then that
> person "owns" the clock data for that task.
>
> 2) Then use the :tags option on a clock table to filter the clock data
> for just the tasks you personally have worked on; each person can have
> their own table (in tasks.org).

That sounds like a good idea - thanks!

I hadn't thought of using :tags on a clock table. I still worry if we'll
find ourselves in a situation where more than one of us has clocked in
some time on the same task.

For example, often I clock into a task while I do the work of
sub-dividing it into smaller tasks. And often when I'm actively working
on a task, I'll create a sub-task of my current-clocked-task on the
fly. It seems to me that if I continue with this sort of working
practice, and attempt to collaborate with others who work similarly,
then we might quickly find that it's not easy to describe a given task
(or even subtask) as being "owned" by a single person.

Again, perhaps my workflow is at fault, and I should be organising
myself in a more principled way. And perhaps in practice I'll find that
tasks do tend to be owned by just one person anyway. 

Thanks for the quick reply!

Gareth.

> For example, suppose you have a task like:
>
> * TODO Frobnicate something
>
> You claim it by changing that to:
>
> * IN_PROGRESS Frobnicate something              :gareth:
>
> Check that in, then start your clock in this tree.
>
> Somewhere else in the file, you have a clock table like:
>
> #+BEGIN: clocktable :maxlevel 3 :scope file :tags "+gareth"
> #+CAPTION: Gareth's working time on all tasks
> # ...
> #+END:
>
> which will show you the clock data for just the tasks you've worked on
> (i.e., are tagged in).