Import Tasks and/or add multiple Tasks at one time

Today we received the following feature request:

When entering tasks, I noticed that you have to enter them one at a time, and that could get pretty onerous. Is there any way that you may be planning to make entering tasks faster (like, importing from csv, or entering "10 at a time" - in a row type format like the modules)?

This request is similar to another feature request to import weekly time from CSV. We want to allow for easier ways to move data in and out of Intervals (the API is underway). It would be great to get thoughts on how much value task importing and/or adding multiple tasks at once would help?

YES! A more productive way to enter tasks would be appreciated. here are some enhancements that would help me. My apologies if these have been mentioned before.

Default Task List, similar to default modules. Allow default estimates. These would be available as a pull-down when creating/editing tasks. Ideally, they should be definable under different "project profiles." See below.

Project Profile (templates), a way to define project modules and tasks that can be applied to new projects as they are created.

Default Module Task List. A list of default tasks associated with a default module. This way, the detail tasks can be entered in one shot by adding the module.

Allow unassigned tasks.

Unscheduled Tasks, Allow Tasks with no start and end dates. Since there is no real date calculation in the system, it is impossible to determine the dates when first creating a project. These will evolve over time as determined.

When the create task function is used repeatedly, retain the project and module information from the previous entry.

Ability to copy a module and all of its associated tasks from one project to another.

Ability to assign multiple people to a task!

## updated 9/15/2008 ##

Just a quick update that we have a few things in the works that touch tasks:

1. the ability to create a task without an assignee or due date - I will personally use this quite a bit because we use Intervals to manage Intervals Dev. This will give me a much better way to manage our backlog. I can create a backlog module in our Intervals Dev project and assign tasks to that module without an assignee or due date. We can move the tasks over as needed. This will add some flexibility and cut down on the number of overdue tasks.

## This is done and live.

2. templated tasks - when creating a task there will be an option to "save this task a template". When a new task is created there will be a drop down menu with theses templates. If the template is selected it will pre-fill the task.

## This is under development and should be live in the next few weeks.

3. assign multiple people to a task

## This is under development and should be live in the next few weeks.

5. add 10 tasks at once

## This is still a little ways off. Probably the 4th quarter.

4. import tasks from CSV

## This is still a little ways off. Probably the 4th quarter.

We are also going to tinker with adding estimated and actual hours on the task listing. We contemplated this awhile back but so many Intervals users at that time were at 1024x768 that it was crammed pretty good. Now that larger monitors have become the norm we should be able to pull this off.

## This is done as well.

How is the Task Template coming along? We really need something like "Jack" posted back in April.

Love love love the assign multiple people to one task feature.