Is Plutio any good for project managers?
In this video, Andrej shows you how to use Plutio for project management. Follow this quick tutorial and learn how to set up everything in Plutio from scratch, and plan a simple project step by step.
Welcome to another episode in this series! Every month we’ll check out a new project management platform and see how viable it is for localization. All online software will be either free or with a free trial so that you can try it on your own.
Andrej Zito
If you’re wondering how to use your for your projects, in this video, I’m going to give you a quick tutorial on how to set up everything from scratch. As soon as you sign up for Plutio. I’m going to show you what settings to change and how to create a simple project step by step, we’re going to be creating a very simple localization project. So let’s get right into it.
Andrej Zito
This is exactly how you start when you first sign up to Plutio, the first thing we’re going to do is not going to be creating a project or creating the tasks, we’re going to go into the settings. If you go under settings and tasks, what we want to fix is this thing position of newly created tasks. And I want to have it at the bottom. I think you will see later soon, why I did this.
Andrej Zito
Now let’s get to the meat of this tutorial, which is creating a project. So we’re going to go to the projects we have no projects created so far. And I’m just going to hit Create Project. And we’re going to call this my localization project. We have no template, no client and no started in deadline, we’ll figure that out as soon as we create the tasks. So I’m just going to hit Create Project. By default, the project is viewed as a Kanban board. What I prefer when I’m adding the task to project is to use the standard table view because we want to set some parameters for the tasks. So I’m going to first switch the view to a table view.
Andrej Zito
Now for this project, what we’re going to do is we’re going to utilize two groups, we’re going to divide the project into three groups based on the tasks. So the first group we’re going to be using is going to be called all and this will represent the tasks that will be done for all the languages at the beginning of the project. Then next thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to create our tier 1 group, which will be for German, and Japanese. And I’ll create one more tier 2 group which will be for French and Korean.
Andrej Zito
Next thing I’m going to do is I’ll add the tasks into this group so that we know all the tasks that need to be done for this project. DTP, QA delivery. So here now you can actually see the reason why we change the settings in the beginning, because I like to add them as I know, the task will follow in the real workflow. So I’m punching them according to the workflow. But if we were using the default settings, the past would actually appear at the top. So that workflow would be reversed. So as I’m adding the delivery as the last step, it would actually go to the top of the table, which is not, I think ideal, what we want to be doing. So here we are, this are all the tasks that we created. And as you can see here, these are the columns are the data that we are showing in the table by default. And what we’re going to be doing next is we’re going to set this view to show only the things that matter to us.
Andrej Zito
So the way that you do this is you use the edit view setting right here, and we’re going to get rid of the IDs, we don’t need the task ID assigned by we don’t need that either assignee, we can keep it even though in my tutorial project, we don’t have any other people to assign a project started due date, we definitely want those when it comes to repeats. We don’t need that because our tasks are not repeating. And then when it comes to indicators, we can also remove that what we’re going to add instead is we’re going to add subtasks. And you’re going to see soon how this is going to be utilized. And you can also reorder right here in the settings I’m going to move the sub task to the start and maybe move assignee to the end of the table. So this is how it looks like right now when it comes to utilizing the sub tasks. The way how you can do it is you actually have to open the task, and you cannot add the sub tasks from the main view. So once you have opened the task, in our case of translation for German, Japanese, you can switch to the checklist where you can add subtasks. So in our case, we’re just going to add a sub task for German and then sub task for the Japanese translation. And here now you can see that the column for subtasks is being used and it shows progress on the subtasks. So then once we start to translation and we start getting English translations back, let’s say for German, I just come here, open the task, take off the subtasks. And you can see it here even on the main view that shows that one out of the two languages were translated. One more important thing that we’re still missing here in this view is the actual status of the tasks. Because by default, you only have the checkbox here, which technically just says task was not done yet. Or if I take it off, it’s completed. So we want to be a little bit more granular. And we want to, especially when it comes to localization projects, we want to track the status, like if the headset was sent, if it was confirmed, and so on. And so the way how you can add this new field is that you actually need to create a custom field. And you do that through the settings again, so we’re going to head to the settings. And here you can see the option for setting up the custom fields. First, you need to set up what fields you want to add your custom fields to, in our case, we want to add them to the task fields. So I’m going to select that one and just create a custom field, I’m going to name this status field. And for the field type, we’re going to choose drop down, because we only have one status at any given time. And we’re going to be selecting it from the list of options, which is what you’re going to set up next. So you can see it here, fill options. So I’m going to add at sub sands, at sub firms, and the sands and firms. And what you can do is also to make it a little bit more colorful, because otherwise the whole user interface is pretty much gray. I guess that’s to allow you to use different colors so that it doesn’t clash with their colors, we can set some background colors. So for headsup sense, I’m going to utilize the workspace colors that are here preset by default. And let’s say this one will be yellow,
Andrej Zito
add sub confirm, we’re going to say it’s green handoff sands, let’s say orange and handoff confirmed, we’re gonna do blue. Alright, so now that we have defined the customer field, let’s go back to our project localization project. And again, going back to the edit view setting, now you can see that we have the option to add the newly created custom field status. So I’m going to edit and I’m going to move it up a little bit after the indicator of the subtasks. So now we have the status here. So all we have to do is let’s say for translation for German Japanese, we already sent the handoff, because it looks like one language is already back. And let’s say for here for mtpe, we just got the confirmation. And we still need to send the project to the translators. And then of course, as you would need, you would just select or change the status as needed. Now the next thing that we’re going to do is I’m going to add all the dates for these tasks based on the effort that I’m just going to come up with. So for pre processing, you just click into the Start Date field in the right cell for the task that you want to set it. And let’s say that we are starting the pre processing, I don’t know tomorrow. And you can even see here, your has this interesting timer, how you set the timer. So I’m just going to set it to 8am. And for the due date, we’re going to say that we’re going to finish may be in the PM, say 5pm. So pretty much end of the day. Okay. So this is how you enter the dates. There’s nothing special about it. So I’m just going to manually continue adding the dates for the remaining tasks. All right, so our project and all the tasks in it are now completely scheduled. So we have a full picture of when each activity is happening and when our project is ending for the different groups of languages under our project. So now that we have this information edit, what we can do now is we can go to the timeline, which is what I usually suggest to people that I think this is the best way how you can track your project and what needs to be happening on each day. Unfortunately input your you don’t have that many options to customize the timeline view. What you can do is you can set the let’s see the zoom level here, Pentagon whether you want to just see more details for the day for the week or for the month. So since our tasks are taking a bunch of days, I’m going to opt to go with the month settings. So here you can see that the swim lanes are split according to the task groups that we set. Unfortunately, you cannot see the tasks under the groups here on the left side, you only have to see them in the timeline view. And for example, here, you can see that our pre processing is only happening on this day. But because the whole text cannot be shown, I have to hover over it actually see what is happening. And the issue. And our issue here is that once we have selected the monthly zoom level, I can only scroll to see the end of January because that’s where we are right now. And if I want to see my project, how it goes next, I have to actually switch to February, which then means I’m losing the sight of what is happening in January, which I think is very, very inconvenient. But here, you can see that for our tier one group, German and Japanese, these are the tasks that we’re doing. And then for two, two, this is what we’re doing for French and Korean. And that’s it. Thank you for watching this quick tutorial on how to get started with Podio and how to create your first project and loaded with tasks and how to get to the timeline view so that you can see all your tasks for your project in one place. If you enjoyed this video, give it a like and consider subscribing to our channel. We will have more videos like this where we explore different platforms and see how you can easily or not easily create projects in them. See you until then, bye bye!
