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THE BASICS
DELEGATOR has the power to greatly enhance communication and effectiveness of organizations and their people. To achieve these goals - and before DELEGATOR is implemented - managers should answer some questions that reflect the organization's style, either present or desired.
The most important questions are:
1. Who should be able to give assignments to whom?
2. Who should be able to view whose assignments?
The answers to these questions are applied to the key terms and concepts below and when setting System Preferences. The development of DELEGATOR was guided by a set of Business Rules. Reading these rules will help all users - and especially System Administrators - gain a better understanding of DELEGATOR.
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Users
Each DELEGATOR User must be assigned a User ID and a password. System Administrators must select which of the other Users can give or view this User's assignments, unless View All is selected in System Preferences.
General User Most users are General Users. They can give, receive and view assignments and other information within the constraints set by the System Administrator. Before presenting selections to a General User, DELEGATOR filters out any choices they are not authorized to view or change.
System Administrator System Administrators have the most powerful access. They add Users and set their access rights. They set the system-wide preferences. They can edit or delete assignments and other information for all Users. In general, they have practically unlimited access and are in a position of great trust. There should be few of them (but at least two).
The large amount of information presented to System Administrators makes it difficult for them to use DELEGATOR for anything but their System Administrator duties. For that reason, your license will include a number of additional free User IDs equal to 5% of the User IDs purchased (min. two additional IDs). These additional IDs can be used as extra General User IDs for the anyone who is a System Administrator.
People Administrator People Administrators are General Users with the additional authority to create 'open' and 'limited' projects and to create 'open' and 'limited' people (discussed below).
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People
'People' are those individuals whose assignments are tracked by DELEGATOR. While all Users are People, not all People are Users. People that are not Users are 'external,' even though they might refer to people inside the organization. DELEGATOR defines four types of People.
User A DELEGATOR User. A User who has received an assignment is also called an assignee.
Open An 'external' person for whom all Users can give or view assignments. Creating an 'Open' person saves all Users from creating their own entry for the person, and it allows all Users to see what other Users have assigned to this person. For example, many Users might use the same contractor or supplier. General Users cannot create 'Open' people.
Limited The same as an 'Open' person, but limited to selected Users.
Private Depending on values set in System Preferences, each User can create his own list of individuals outside of DELEGATOR whose assignments they wish to track. These people entries and their assignments can be viewed only by the User or a System Administrator, unless View All is selected in System Preferences. Some uses for a 'Private' person entry are:
to track assignments given to a supplier or staff person who is not a User;
to track your own personal to-dos that you don't want to share with those who have viewing rights to assignments for your User ID; and
to track the requests you make of other Users for whom you do not have rights to give assignments.
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Assignments
An Assignment is any task, job, or goal given by one User to another User, to themselves or to an 'external' person. The creator of the Assignment is the Assignment's 'owner.' Only the Assignment's owner can change the information in an Assignment. Assignees, however, can add their own comments to an assignment. Also, if the Assignment owner so specifies, an Assignee can conclude the Assignment.
For most functions, only the recipient of the Assignment and its owner can view the Assignment, unless System Preferences have been set to display all Assignments. Users can view Assignments given by others to (1) 'open' people, (2) 'limited' people for whom they are authorized, (3) other Users for whom they have viewing access rights. The View All check box on all the assignment browse windows allows a User to view the assignments of all other Users for which the User has view rights. Only the Look Forward (Person) and History (Person) functions will display the assignments that were not given or received by the User. System Administrators can view and change all the assignments of everyone.
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Project
A project is group of related assignments that you want to track together. A project consists of a name or label for the project (up to 30 characters) and a list of the assignments. A project can be 'open' (available to all users), 'limited' (available to selected users) or 'private' (avaialble only to the user who created it).
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Printing Reports
Information in the DELEGATOR database may be printed in several ways. You choose your desired options in the Report Selection window.
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Going through the help topics listed below will give you enough information to start using and benefitting from DELEGATOR right away. While these core functions will get you started, mastering the other functions will give you even more benefits.
Log In
Menu and Toolbar
Set System Preferences
Add User
Add Person
Add Assignment
View Assignments Due Now
View Assignments Due in the Future
View Assignments Given in the Past
Print Assignment Reports
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