ForumsQuestionsImportance levels and Hotlist


Importance levels and Hotlist
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Joe

Posted: Apr 21, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Hi there,

I know there are many topics on how people feel about the Importance Level weighting system (for those who don't know):

The formula for importance is : Importance = 2+P+S+D
P=priority
S=is it starred (0 or 1)
D=0 if due-date is non-existent or further than 14 days out, 1 if due-date is between 7 and 14 days out, 2 if due-date is between 2 and 7 days out, 3 if due-date is tomorrow, 5 if due-date is today, and 6 if overdue.

The problem I have with this system is that items which are of a low priority but a due date are higher than those with a high priority and no due date. Therefore, something which I've been putting off doing (even though I'm late doing it) appears more important than something I really need to do asap but has no specific due date.

Personally I think it would work better if it was 2+S+(P*D) so that priority directly affected due date.

The reason I find this important, is because the Hotlist decides for me which things are important, and at the moment my Hotlist has low priority stuff with due dates rather than some high priority stuff without.

What do other people think about this? At the very least, it would be good to customise my Hotlist to show what I need...

Thanks :)

:-Joe
Joe

Posted: Apr 21, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Okay... So I should have looked a bit closer shouldn't I...

I didn't realise you could edit the Hotlist parameters... Great, all sorted :-)

But I still think that in terms of importance level, that the weighting of due date over priority is a bit high. At the very least I would do:

2 + S + (P*2) + D

What do you think?
stephen.ferro

Posted: Apr 21, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I agree that importance overweights due dates. Given the flexibility of TD I would think that everyone's preference would be a little different. Personally, If I star something it should have a higher priority than the highest priority task due (or overdue) so something like:

2 + (S*12) + (P*2) + D

Would be best for me. Maybe let people generate their own equation (within limits of course - don't expect exponentials)?
marphod

Posted: Apr 22, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I would think it would be easier to give the user a few options, rather than let them calculate a formula.

First, debugging when a user enters an odd formulas is going to be a pain; Second, it means parsing specific formulas and determining what the user means; and, Third, you need to test the parsing so you don't run into buffer overflows or value overflows or any other odd conditions.

I'd like to be able to either rate the relative importance of Due Date, Starred, and Priority. Alternatively, simple radio buttons to rate each one higher or lower in scoring would be nice.
stephen.ferro

Posted: Apr 23, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Good points marphod.

I think you are onto something great with the simple interface to rate the importance of the different elements. You can get to the flexibility without the risk of creating calculation issues on TD's servers.
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