Production tasks

Production tasks turn the work in your production plan into tasks your team can be assigned and work through. Each task has an owner, a due date and a status, and it keeps itself up to date as the work is recorded, so nobody has to mark it done twice.

Everyone sees their own work on their production day, managers see the whole brewery's work in one list, and the production calendar shows who has what, day by day.

What becomes a production task

Transfers, packagings, cleaning and maintenance, sign-offs and batch readings become tasks automatically. Brew sheet work only becomes tasks once someone prepares the batch, because that is when you decide who does each part of it.

Tasks are created for work up to a set number of days ahead (14 by default), so your team can see what is coming without the list filling up with next month's plan.

How tasks keep themselves up to date

You don't complete a production task by hand. Each one follows the work it stands for: recording the transfer completes the transfer task, finishing the brew sheet stage completes the stage task, and signing off the cleaning record completes the sign-off task. If the work stops existing, for example a planned packaging is deleted, its task is cancelled (or removed, if nobody had been given it).

Tasks update as soon as the work is recorded, and Breww also checks every task each night at midnight in your brewery's time zone.

Statuses

Due dates

Each task takes its due date from the plan:

• Brew sheet tasks are dated from the batch's start date, its turns and each stage's duration. As stages finish, the later stages' dates move to match what really happened. A step with a trigger, such as "3 days after the stage starts", is dated by that trigger.
• Transfers are due on the planned vessel's start date, and packagings on the planned packaging date.
• Cleaning and maintenance tasks are due on the day the record was raised, and sign-offs on the day the work was done.
• Batch readings are due when the vessel's current reading window opens.
• Tasks follow the general task's due date.

When the plan changes, the task's date changes with it. If you move a task's date yourself, for example by dragging it on the calendar, it stops following the plan and shows a pin icon. To put it back, select it on the Production task assignment page and use Reset due date to plan.

Setting up production tasks

Production tasks are off until someone chooses to use them. Anyone with the Settings permission sees a prompt on the Production dashboard, the general Tasks page and the cleaning and maintenance records list. Click Set up production tasks to start, or No thanks, hide this message to stop being asked. You can also go to Settings -> Production -> Production tasks at any time.

The setup takes a couple of minutes:

1. What production tasks are - a short explanation.
2. How far ahead - set Days ahead to create tasks for and Days back to pick up overdue cleaning and maintenance. The second one stops old, forgotten records from arriving as a pile of overdue work on day one.
3. Who does what - for each kind of work, choose the users and groups who normally do it. Anything left blank stays unassigned, and anyone can pick it up. This step only appears if you also have the Assign production tasks permission, and it sets up the standing assignment rules for all of your sites.
4. Planning around people - how preparing batches, the calendar and the staffing plan fit together.
5. Summary - check your choices and click Enable production tasks.

Tasks for your current work appear within a few minutes.

Production task settings

Go to Settings -> Production -> Production tasks. The Settings card holds:

• Use production tasks - switches the whole feature on or off.
• Days ahead to look for production tasks - how far ahead tasks are created for planned transfers and packagings, and which planned batches are listed as needing their tasks preparing.
• Days back to raise tasks for cleaning and maintenance records - a record older than this raises no new task. A record that already has a task keeps it until the record is completed, however old it gets.

You need the Settings permission to change these. The Assignment rules card on the same page is covered in Assignment rules and the staffing plan.

Finding your production tasks

Once production tasks are on, the Tasks menu becomes a dropdown for anyone with the General production permission:

• General tasks - your usual staff tasks.
• Production tasks - your production day.
• Production calendar - who has what, day by day.
• Production task assignment - the manager's list, for anyone with the Assign production tasks permission.

The badges on the menu count the production tasks assigned to you that are due today, and those that are overdue.

You'll also find production tasks on each batch's Production tasks tab, beside each stage and step on the brew sheet, in an Assigned to column on the Production dashboard's transfers, packaging and cleaning tabs, and on planned packaging and cleaning record pages.

Who can do what

The Production system group includes Assign production tasks. For anyone else who plans and assigns work, a brewery admin can grant it to them or to one of your own groups. A task assigned to a group shows for everyone in that group. See User groups and permissions for how to grant permissions.

Reporting on production tasks

Production tasks is available as a report type in the Report builder and the Data explorer. You can count tasks by status, kind of work or site, over their created, due or completed dates.

In this section

• Assignment rules and the staffing plan - decide who gets each kind of work, every day or on specific dates.
• Preparing a batch's production tasks - turn a batch's brew sheet work into tasks and choose who does each part.
• Your production day - the page your team works from.
• Managing production tasks and the production calendar - see the whole brewery's work, assign it in bulk and move it between people.