TimeMaker Matrix Lesson 8 - Load Leveling Part 1 (E-Mails and Messages)
TM Matrix Lesson 8 – E-mails and Messages Load Leveling
Prerequisites:
1. Study “Grouping” Lesson.
In this tutorial, we will go over how to know what to assign to a person while regarding his work load involving TM Messages and e-mails.
The first thing we’ll need to take a look at is this little icon of a bishop - the “Show Production Items” pull down menu.
By default the “Show Messages/E-Mails” button (which we’ll get to in a moment) is selected. Clicking on the “Show Production Items” button will un-select it and will hide all Production Items.
Another function is the ability to display on the Matrix columns with the days that have no Production Items assigned to them. This is done by clicking on the little down arrow next to the bishop icon. Your options are “None”, Today”, This Week” and “This and Next Two Weeks”. Let’s understand what each one does.
None – in this case the empty dates will be indicated not by columns, but by little boxes between the column dates that have Production Items. This little numberindicates the number of days between dates that have no Production Items – in our case 2 days. None is the default display.
Today – this show a column for today no matter what - even if no Production Items have been assigned for today.
This Week – this will show all the seven days this week as boxes even if no Production Items have been assigned to them.
This and Next Two Weeks – this will show all the days this week and for the next two weeks as columns even if no Production Items have been assigned then.
Next is the “Show Messages/E-mails” pull down menu.
Clicking on this button will show the e-mails and TimeMaker Messages in all of the Performers’ inboxes which you have a right to view (including yours of course). They are arranged on a column according to the dates received and will always be today or in the past (you can’t receive an e-mail in the future).
This small mail icon indicates we are looking at an e-mail/message box and to its left we see whose email box we are looking at.
The E: inside the box stands for e-mail. The two numbers with a slash in between indicate from left to right total number of emails (for that day) and next the number of unread e-mails. So, in our case we are looking at a total of 17 emails in the inbox and 7 unread e-mails.
The M indicates TM Messages. It works with a similar numbering system - in this case there is a total of 12 messages with 8 unread TM Messages.
The basic idea with this is to give a quick way to show the load e-mails and messages is creating for that time. Therefore, when one adds a Production Item he does so with a full view of the actual load the Performer is confronting and so makes sure the Performer is not overloaded with too many e-mails and too many tasks.
The pull down menu gives us the following options:
Join TimeMaker Messages and E-mails in One Box – selecting this option shows all TM Messages and e-mails per Performer in one box on the columns of the dates which received Messages or e-mails. Unselecting shows one box for TimeMaker Messages and one for e-mails per selected Performer.
We will keep this selected so we see in one box all emails and TM Messages for the selected users.
Show All Messages Today – When this option is unselected the email boxes are spread based on the dates the emails or TM Messages were received. Selecting this option shows all past emails and TM Messages in one box on today’s column.
We will keep this option selected so we will see all emails and TM Messages under today’s column.
Show Both –includes in one email/message box all e-mails and TM messages that are sitting in the inbox of the selected Performers.
Show Only E-Mails – this makes one box in the Matrix for each selected Performer indicating the total number of e-mails and the total number of unread e-mails.
Show Only TimeMaker Messages – this makes a box for each of the selected Performers for TM Message received indicating the total number of TM Messages in the Performer’s inbox and the total number of unread TM Messages.
If you hover over the TM Message box or the E-mail box, a hint will list the details about the TM Messages or e-mails that Performer has in that box on that specific column.