Now that you have your schedule set up and ready to go for your project, you'll want to make sure your settings are correct to notify your trade partners and internal assignees of tasks at the right time.
There are a couple of requirements for CoConstruct to notify assignees of their schedule tasks:
- The project must be "Active"
- The schedule must be published
- Assignees must be set up to receive task notifications
If those conditions are met, your Scheduling Settings (Settings > Scheduling) control when those assignees receive their notifications in relation to the task's start date.
Here's a quick video to walk you through these settings to help you determine the appropriate option for your account:
Here's an overview of the settings mentioned above (from bottom to top):
- But, even if dates are stable, do not notify assignees more than X calendar days before their tasks' start dates: This setting is the catchall to make sure notifications aren't sent out for your schedules too far in advance. Your schedule is likely to change here and there as the project progresses, so notifying a sub 9 months in advance of his/her task will likely lead to them getting multiple revisions between now and then. You'll want to set this number to the maximum time frame you want your assignees to be notified of their tasks in advance (most commonly 30 - 60).
- Once the assignment is made, even if the dates are not stable: This setting will ensure that your assignees are notified of their tasks as soon as the start date falls in your maximum time frame set above. Or, if you make the assignment and the start date is already within the maximum, the notification goes out immediately. The notifications aren't reliant on other tasks.
- Once any predecessor tasks have stable dates: This setting requires that the preceding tasks are stable before any notifications are sent out with no fail-safe. This setting isn't recommended unless your labor is mostly internal or doesn't need any advanced notice to book your projects.
- Once any predecessor tasks have stable dates or are within X calendar days of a task's start date: This is the default setting for all accounts and is CoConstruct's best recommendation for controlling your notifications. The stable date requirement ensures that any preceding tasks have either been fully confirmed by its assignees or has already been completed. The "X" calendar days allows you to establish a minimum time frame in which you want your assignees notified. For example, entering "14" here ensures that all assignees will be notified 14 days before the task's start date regardless of anything else in the schedule.
What is a stable date?
A task has a "stable date" when either (1) all assignees have confirmed the task or (2) the task is marked completed. These criteria are intended as a solid indicator that the task will happen when it's supposed to.
Once a task is stable, any dependent tasks will then trigger notifications to assignees based on the setting selected above.