Auto Scheduling

Thanks, Xavier. You wrote more than what I was expecting. Fantastic. Another simple example, if I want to write a book, I assume it will take 1 year to write the book. if proper inputs are not there Quire will schedule the next 365 X 24 hrs continuously as a task for book writing. Other normal tasks will get affected and cannot be slotted. Hence we need to have controls in place.

I will tag this task as hobby. I will constraint to allot tasks with hobby as a tag to be scheduled only on weekends. Now what happens is Quire allots all weekends for the next 10 yrs or so for book writing. This is not acceptable. So I will specify sprints. Here we can describe what duration we are willing to work continuously on an single instant of the task.

Now we have specified the task duration say one hour at a time Quire will split the task but it will split and schedule continuously as separate schedules of one hour each (in this scenario 24 number of one hour schedules continuously on all Saturday and Sunday.).

To overcome this issue, I can specify a gap of 24 hrs between sprints so that it's scheduled the next day. In this way, I get to write for say 2 hours per week that too one hour each on Saturday and Sunday only until I have consumed my estimated hours for completion (in this case 1 year = 365 X 24 Hrs).

There should be option for priority too. In case some other task is on priority and rated higher than this then the higher priority one should get scheduled. To be more creative you could ask for a preferred time to schedule. For example, cooking could be done early afternoon. Walking could be done early morning or in the evening. There are lots of scopes to improve on this idea.

This auto-schedule will also give us an idea when the task will get completed. Based on this if I want to complete it quickly I can increase the splint time two hours a day instead of one hour a day. We can also see based on future schedules when we are expecting to prioritize other tasks over this.

Another alternate option would be to give the due date but don't specify the time duration but specify a time range so that it splits automatically in to chunks of tasks to satisfy the timeline. In this case the maximum time span at any instant would be the range and minimum time could be anytime less than this. For example in the story writing task if I don't specify a time span but a range (instead of 1 hours, I mention less than 3 hours but greater than 1 hour) it can slot the task with duration any time between 1 and 3 hour so that the task is completed in due date. If I want to restrict to a defined time span I will chose say less than 1 and greater than 1 or something like that.

The above discussed method could be nestled with the day preference too. For example during preference I select Saturday & Sundays and prefered time to be 0600 AM to 0900 AM. That is three hours.If I don't specify any time span the program assigns a single task schedule of duration for three hours or less on Saturday and Sunday between 6 & 9 AM taking into consideration, estimates time for the task completion and due date supplies during task creation & other task priorities. If I have specified that a gap of 24 hours between schedule it ensures the next schedule happens only on the next day.

A timer can also be included in Quire which will pop up when the scheduled task is due. This can open as a heads-up notification in the mobile with the options for the user to run/pause/defer/reschedule. In the above example of story writing due to some other chores, I had to interrupt my story writing @ 0.5 hrs, I pause the button in the heads-up notification. Then it accounts that the task is performed only for 0.5 hrs on that particular day and adds the time to the next schedule.

Making a schedule with timelines makes us more perfect than just having a task Todo list. It also makes use of our time efficiency. Hope this helps. Please feel to reach out to me in case you need any clarifications.

@peggy actually it's for non disciplined persons. Their agenda would have been automatically populated. This will make them to act on the agenda. Moreover, it's not required for the members to input all the data. If there are not checking "Auto Schedule" the other inputs will not appear. Hence it will be like a run of the mill To do list program. If they check option to auto schedule it will give options based on the input provided (All inputs are not required. But acceptability increase with data provided). In case if he is not satisfied with the schedule he can uncheck auto schedule. The options available in Quire are available in most programs. To be different and to have a unique selling factor this could be helpful. Thanks.

Hi @enewsdigest1 and @xavier.debacker , would you mind sharing with us a use case or real case scenario for this kind of feature? Please give us an example, particularly on the second point of the request (regarding task splitting or not, etc), so that we can fully understand what you mean! Thank you for your help! 💪

Hi @enewsdigest1 , sorry, we don't have an update for this request. If there's any new information, I will make sure to let you know in this thread! Thank you.

@peggy & @vickyp any update on this one

Thanks @peggy . Thanks for keeping this option still open. Apologies, I am not able to explain the concept in a comprehensive way.

Please have a look at apps like

https://www.skedpal.com/ https://app.futurenda.com

You will easily understand.

We (Quire) have a more advanced foundation than these apps. Auto scheduling on top of our robust basic frame work will make Quire one of a kind app with a killer feature not available with competitors.

Once developed this could be offered in the premium package.

Hi @enewsdigest1 , thank you for your example, this is a very interesting idea. However, for auto-scheduling to give its full effect, users would be required to enter as much detail of their day and day schedule, this way our system will able to know and learn when the user has free time, for it to slot in tasks. It sounds like you are a highly disciplined person who will take time to help our system learn your schedule, but I'm just curious whether if most users will also have the patience and perseverance to do such thing lol 😜

An example of GUI with options for user input.

1. Task (story writing)
2. Tag (hobby) 2a. Start Date (12-12-2019)
3. Estimates Time (500 Hrs)
4. Due Date (12-12-2020)
5. Priority(High)
6. Auto Schedule (yes)
7. Split (yes)
8. Day (Saturday and Sunday)
9. Time (6 - 9 AM)
10. Sprint Time Span (>1<1)
11. Minimum Time Between Sprints (24 hrs)
12. Maximum Time between sprints (48 hrs)
13. Time Record (yes)

In the above case the task will be scheduled on all Saturday and Sunday considering other task priorities between 6 and 9 AM for a duration of 1 hour until the estimated time of 500 hours is completed. Once a 1 hour Sprint is completed the next will be scheduled after at least 24 hours but not later than 48 hours.

In case if I want to be flexible with my Sprint I will specify Sprint Time Span as (>1<3) so that the a Sprint can have a time span between 1 hour to 3 hour. This 1 or 2 or 3 hour sprints will be decided by Quire based on due date and other task priorities.

Hi @enewsdigest1 , duly noted. Based on my understanding of your examples, our system will create a new task according to your settings for auto-scheduling and your existing task schedule. How will our system know which time slots are occupied or not if you don't fill in your every schedule manually?

Hi 😃

Thank you very much for bringing this feature request to our attention. We're discussing internally to see if there's anything we can do about this in the short time. THank you 😃

We should start with small steps. First let's have an option to 'Time Map' particular categories.

For e.g., Work tasks can be scheduled between 9 AM to 6 PM on weekdays.

We need to have a sleep time too. May be from 10 PM to 8 AM.

Then all tasks will be scheduled as per this category time maps.

Let's have this as version 1 target.

Then with future version updates we can introduce advanced futures like 'task splitting' and preference with respect to days and time zones.

@peggy any further clarification required from my end.

@peggy

A few examples: haircut: repeat every 5 weeks. If I skip it one day, reschedule it to the next day. advanced haircut: if skipped, reschedule it to the next open day.

apple: buy a apple, when buy an apple is done then create "eat the apple" at next lunch time. if skipped then reschedule it to diner time. if more than 7 days then replace "eat the apple" with "trash the apple". ;op

build a robot. working on project "build a robot" should be scheduled only tuesdays and fridays between 6pm and 9pm (because that's when I have access to the lab), but not more than 2hours per week (or the priority gets lower and lower). "build a robot" task can be split in "build arm" and "build leg". But for some reason, when I start building a leg I must finish it without stopping or splitting the working session (well this is an example). Each time I work on building a robot, I must prepare the lab, get the place and tools prepared, and each time I end my working session, I must cleanup the mess before leaving...

same for workouts, cooking recipe (wait 8 to 24h after the chicken has been put out of the freezer ... and of course if you started your chicken recipe you don't want to cancel it later, or at least you want to cook it)

well, that's where it gets fun. But I guess a simple scheduler/trigger language has to be created.

this is a need to describe a process, the timing of a process. then add a tool to schedule the tasks, more powerful if the next task can be dynamically rescheduled if it depends on the completion time of the previous task in the process/recipe.

have fun.

+1000 that's a killer feature @vickyp @peggy but then you have to create like a programming language to be able to schedule, show, hide, trigger, reschedule, take gps into account, duplicate ... the tasks in a way that fit all millions of quire users ;op