TAS System

TAS For The Uninitiated!

* This document has a few siblings which contain further information about TAS: * Tas - Mapping commands to a queue.

TAS, the Task and Assist System, is a powerful tool that every staff member should utilize. Because of the endless ways you can utilize this system, to the new staffer it may seem overwhelming and intimidating. I'll break some of the more basic uses down step by step so you can become more familiar with this system.

Turn TAS On

TAS has a chatline capability and works like all other chatlines do. Every occurance through TAS (filing assists, adding notes to assists, closing assists and more) gets recorded on the chatline and so you need to have this line turned on to be able to see assists filed.

+tas on - Turns the chatline on. +tas secure - You should do this while possessing your staff body as it ensures that no matter what chatter body you inhabit, your staff name comes up on the line (and keeps us from having to keep track of character names).

I have it turned on. Now what??

Once you have the line turned on, you will be able to see assists filed. They will look like this: 13:47 [TAS] "<#874/New> filed by StoryCoder Geli[ocannie]: Testing for my tas document"

The 13:47 is the time the assist was filed. [TAS] is obviously the chatline. <#874/New> is the assist number (all assists are given numbers sequentially) and the queue it was filed in. It then lists character name and account name of the chatter who filed it. Last is the actual assist they filed.

Now I just mentioned queues above. TAS is divided into an unlimited amount of queues. \@assist is filed into the "New" queue, \@bug is filed directly into a "Bugs" queue, \@typo into a "Typos" queue and so on. We'll get into queues in more depth a little later, but to see the main queues, type +tas queues.

To view an individual queue, type +tas queuename, i.e. +tas new. You'll see a list of all assists filed under that queue.

Next you'll want to know how to view individual assists/tasks. +tas info # will pull up the information on that assist.

+tas info 874

Task #874           Server: Lovecraft  Theatre: LC               Priority: 10
----------------------------------------------------------------------
     Account: ocannie                               Flags: 
  Character: StoryCoder Geli                     Queue: New
 Date Filed: Wed Sep  1 13:47:04 2004    Revision: 1
    Last Rev: Wed Sep  1 13:47:04 2004
Environment: &lt;Nino:Workroom>

Assisted By: **OPEN**                    Date Claimed: **OPEN**
Assigned To:                                  Date Closed: **OPEN**
------------------------------[X] MESSAGE [X]-------------------------

Testing for my tas document 

-------------------------------[X] NOTES [X]--------------------------
  

Okay, I've looked at the info on an assist and want to work on it.

When you want to work on an assist, the next step is to claim it. Sometimes staffers get ahead of themselves and begin working on an assist without claiming it and what happens is mutiple staffers end up working on the same one. This leads to confusion and extra work, so please claim a task if you intend to work on it.

+tas 874 14:22 [TAS] "You have claimed task #874 from the New queue.

<Ocannie/StoryCoder Geli>: Testing for my tas document

See '+tas info 874' for specific information regarding this task.

You have now claimed the task and can begin work on it. Several things you may do while working on an assist: * Add notes to it. You can add multiple notes to any task by typing +tas note "Make sure the doc is precise and accurate" if you have that task claimed, or +tas note 874 "Make sure the doc is precise and accurate" if you do not have it claimed. * Transfer it to another queue. There may be times when an assist needs to be forwarded to someone else to look at. +tas transfer # newqueue will do that for you. i.e. +tas transfer 874 bugs. * Return it to the queues. If you've done all you can do on an assist and cannot resolve it, you will want to return it to the queue. +tas return will do that. * Close the assist. Once you are able to resolve the assist, you'll want to close it. The command is +tas done "Note about what was done to resolve the assist."

More On Queues

While one of the functions of TAS is for players to file assists, bug reports, etc so that we as staff can attend to them, another function is basically project management. What this means is we can file tasks for ourselves and others that's basically a "to-do" list. There are many queues for many different areas so that staff can file tasks for specific purposes. There are even subqueues of main queues, an example being the Staff queue which has queues for each individual staff member under it.

To view all queues including subqueues, type +tas tree

> +tas tree

General
  `-> Aztasks - [S][2/0]
  `-> Bugs - [SG][64/0]
          `-> Mgeneric - [P][11/0]
          `-> Startstory - [P][2/0]
  `-> Ce - [SE][0/0]
  `-> Changelog - [S][0/0]
  `-> Client - [SE][0/0]
  `-> Codingrequests - [G][0/0]
          `-> Cnpcs - [P][16/0]
          `-> Props - [P][13/2]
          `-> Rooms - [P][5/0]
  `-> Eng-pending - [SE][0/0]
  `-> Eng-wishlist - [S][0/0]
  `-> Fog - [][0/0]
  `-> Ideas - [S][121/0]
  `-> Kalle - [][0/0]
  `-> Lsc - [][6/0]
  `-> Lsh - [][0/0]
  `-> Lsp - [][1/0]
  `-> New - [S][10/3]
  `-> Room-bugs - [G][40/0]
          `-> Maps - [P][15/0]
  `-> Socials - [S][39/0]
  `-> Staff - [G][0/0]
          `-> Geli - [P][1/0]
          `-> Wells - [P][0/0]
          `-> Willow - [P][5/0]
  `-> Suspended - [S][0/0]
  `-> Tas - [SE][0/0]
  `-> Task - [S][2/0]
  `-> Typos - [S][9/0]
  `-> Xcode - [S][0/0]

[S: System, E: Email Alerted, P: Private, G: Contains <nop>SubQueues, L: Locked Queue][Open/Claimed]</font>
  

The numbers beside each queue denotes how many tasks are in that queue currently.

To file a task in a particular queue: task geli "Can you look into writing a document for TAS?" and that task will be filed directly into Geli's personal queue.

Adding New Queues

To make your own personal queue, follow these steps... * +tas add queuename (i.e. +tas add geli) * +tas private queuename (denotes the queue as a private queue) * +tas desc queuename "Description" (Sets a description for your queue) * +tas associate queuename (Associates you with specified queue so that you need only type task "Whatever it is you want to file" and it files it directly into your queue) * +tas slide queuename staff (sets your queue as a subqueue of Staff)

To make a new queue for a project (as opposed to a personal queue), follow the same steps, but do not make the queue private, and do not associate yourself to the queue.

Skotos Seven does not have a general Staff queue, so you need to create a queue for your game, such as "Pendragon-staff", slide that under your game's general queue (so it would be Pendragon/Pendragon-staff), and then create a personal queue and slide that under your game staff sub-queue (Pendragon/Pendragon-staff/Wolfram).

Now you should have the basics of TAS down. There are many other things you can do like search tasks by keywords, view stats, and more. To view the entire list of commands, type +tas help all.

If anything in this document seems unclear or you have any suggestions, please e-mail me at geli@lovecraftcountry.com

-----

TAS Commands

* +tas help (and +tas help all) * +tas open (to see what TAS items are open)

----

Creating a New TAS Verb

So let's say you've created a spiffy new queue, and want people to be able to enter things directly into it from an OOC command, like an "@" command. Here's what you do.

* Look at the original \@bug verb. * +tool woe view %Neoct:OOC:Verbs:\@bug * Make your own social from it by duplicating and renaming it in WOE. * For instance, I made Pendragon:Socials:OOC:\@poprops, for Pendragon Online Props * Note that the command cannot have a hyphen in it, so it cannot be, for instance, \@po-props. * Edit the Socials:Verb, and change "imp" to your new verb name, and the second and third also. * For instance, I changed these to \@poprops * Edit the Core:Properties, and change the merry:global:command script to make it your own queue instead of the standard "bugs" queue. * For instance, I changed it from $queue: "bugs" to $queue: "pendragon-props".

-- Main.PeterCorless - 20 Nov 2004