en-US/about_mytasks.help.txt
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about_mytasks SHORT DESCRIPTION The commands in the module are intended to be used as a simple solution for personal project management or as a more extensive To-Do list. The goal is to put all of your work items at your fingertips in a PowerShell session. At a glance you should be able to see project status and update your tasks. LONG DESCRIPTION The core of this module is an object defined in a PowerShell class. The class has a number of properties, some of which are hidden, meaning you won't see them unless you specify the property name. Note: ID and OverDue values are calculated at run time. [int]$ID [string]$Name [string]$Description [datetime]$DueDate [bool]$Overdue [String]$Category [ValidateRange(0,100)][int]$Progress hidden[bool]$Completed hidden[datetime]$TaskCreated = (Get-Date) hidden[datetime]$TaskModified hidden[guid]$TaskID = (New-Guid) A MyTask object might look like this: ID : 8 Name : Lab Setup Description : DSC Labs DueDate : 9/1/2018 12:00:00 AM Overdue : False Category : Work Progress : 0 The class methods are invoked by the different functions within this module. The ID property is calculated at run time when all the tasks are loaded into the PowerShell session. These numbers might change in the same way that job numbers change from session to session. The hidden TaskID is the unique id for each task. DESIGN All task information is stored in an XML file which is created in the user's documents folder. On Linux with PowerShell Core the $home folder will be used. This path is stored as a global variable myTaskPath and will have a value like: C:\Users\Jeff\Documents\myTasks.xml. There is also an XML file for archiving completed tasks. This too is in the Documents or $home folder and can be referenced via the myTaskArchivePath variable. As tasks are created, modified, completed and archived, these XML files are updated. Select-XML is used extensively to make this process as efficient as possible. CATEGORIES The MyTask object has a provision to tag or label each task with a category. By default the class includes an enumeration with a default set of categories: + Work + Personal + Other + Customer Or you can create your own text list of categories which override the default settings. For example, you might want to add a priority category such as High, Medium and Low. The module is designed to look for a specific text file of category names. Instead of manually creating the text file, it is strongly recommended to use the MyTaskCategory commands. + Add-MyTaskCategory + Get-MyTaskCategory + Remove-MyTaskCategory The commands should be self-explanatory. It is also recommended to keep your custom category list as short as possible as several commands have a dynamic parameter to expand this list. You should avoid removing any item from a custom category list as long as you have an active task with that category. CREATING A TASK Use the New-MyTask command to create a new task. The required parameters are Name and Category. You can specify a deadline date or a number of days in which to complete the task. If you don't specify anything the default is 7 days from the current date. New-MyTask -Name "Rebuild DC02" -Category Work -Days 30 DISPLAYING A TASK The Get-MyTask command will read all tasks from the task XML file and create mytask objects. During this process the OverDue property is calculated based on comparing the current date to the DueDate. All tasks will be assigned an ID value. Tasks are sorted by due date in descending order and completed tasks are filtered out by default. This means that you might see gaps in the IDs. Use the -All property to display everything or -Completed to see only completed tasks. The module includes a custom format type extension file which includes several custom views. You can try commands like these: Get-Mytask | Sort-object Category | format-table -view Category Get-Mytask | format-list -view All The second command is especially useful as it will display all properties, even hidden ones. An alternative to Get-MyTask is Show-MyTask. This command behaves the same as Get-MyTask except that output is written directly to the console using Write- Host so that it can be colorized. Overdue tasks will be displayed in Red. Items that are due in the next 24 hours will be displayed in Yellow. Completed tasks will be displayed in Green. MODIFYING A TASK Use Set-MyTask to modify an existing task. You can update any combination of these properties: + Name + Category + DueDate + Description + Progress You can specify a task by its name or ID, although it might be easiest to use Get-MyTask and pipe to Set-MyTask. Get-MyTask -id 6 | Set-MyTask -Progress 33 -DueDate 8/20/2018 -Passthru ID Name Description DueDate OverDue Category Progress -- ---- ----------- ------- ------- -------- -------- 6 Rebuild DC02 8/20/2018 False Work 33 COMPLETING A TASK When a task if finished, use Complete-MyTask to mark it as complete. This will set the Progress to 100 and set the hidden Completed property to TRUE. Get-MyTask -id 6 | Complete-MyTask The completed task will remain in the task XML file until you archive it or delete it. You can delete any task from the XML file with Remove-MyTask. ARCHIVE AND BACKUP If you will be making changes to your tasks, you might want to backup the XML task file. Instead of manually copying the file use the Backup-MyTask command. By default the command will create a backup copy in your documents folder using a timestamp filename. PS C:\> backup-mytaskfile -Passthru Directory: C:\Users\Jeff\documents Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a---- 7/19/2018 6:19 PM 16461 MyTasks_Backup_20180719.xml Or you can specify your own location and file name. Finally, if you have a number of completed tasks that you wish to save but not be imported every time you run Get-MyTask, you can archive them to a separate XML file. The command is technically called Save-MyTask but you can also use its alias Archive-MyTask. PS C:> archive-mytask By default all completed tasks will be removed from the tasks XML file and stored in a file called myTasksArchive.xml in the user's documents folder. You also have the option of archiving specific tasks. This will move the task to the new file in its current state. PS C:> get-mytask TaskX | save-mytask -Path C:\Work\Other.xml You can also archive a file when completing it. Complete-MyTask -Name "setup CEO laptop" -archive Although this will automatically archive it to the myTasksArchive.xml file. There is no provision to specify an alternate location like Save-MyTask. Use the `Get-MyTaskArchive` to retrieve archived tasks. EMAIL REMINDER If you are running this module on a Windows platform with the PSScheduled jobs module you can create a scheduled PowerShell job to send a daily email message showing tasks that are due in the next 3 days or whatever you choose. The default behavior is to send a text message but you can send an HTML message which will add color coding to highlight overdue and impending tasks. Use Enable-EmailReminder to set up the scheduled job. The default time is 8:00AM daily but you can pick a different time. The job name is hard coded. You will need to re-enter your current credentials for the task so that the task scheduler has access to the network. Run Disable-EmailReminder to remove the task in case you want to change it. Get-EmailReminder will show you the current state of the task. NOTE This module is not intended as a full-feature project management tool. It is intended to serve as a light-weight reminder or to-do list system. However, feature requests and comments are welcome on the project's GitHub site at https://github.com/jdhitsolutions/MyTasks. TROUBLESHOOTING NOTE There are no known issues at this time. SEE ALSO KEYWORDS + task + project + to-do |