====== Tollgates ======

Tollgates are a commonly used method of controlling progress in a project. A tollgate usually provides a review of a pre agreed set of tasks that are being carried out in a phase or stage of a project and using DMS allows all or a sub set of these tasks to be created and monitored by the PMO team.

Each Schedule Group has its own set of tasks which together are referred to as the Task Schedule or T-Schedule. Tollgate tasks are created as templates in Setup and can then be quickly and easily applied to any point in the structure or to a specific Schedule Group. The timeline for these tasks can be set to days or weeks as part of the DMS instance setup.

Tasks names may show a number to the left of showing the number of deployments requiring the given task. If only a single task is required, no counter is shown.

The figure below shows a T-Schedule tracker bar (in weeks) for a Schedule Group in the DMS Console. This tracker bar provides an easy to use intuitive interface that allows PMO users to track and manage the tasks of the project, illustrating the timeline and the status of tasks at a glance.

{{ :dms:tasks.png?nolink |}}

====== Tasks ======

A T-Schedule is created from a list of tasks configured for each Schedule Group. When a Schedule Group is created it inherits the list of tasks according to the template used to create it. Once the Schedule Group is created the Tasks can be further amended, added to or removed.

Tasks are created with a T date and an ‘Amber days’ number. This allows DMS to report on the RAG (Red/Amber/Green) state of any task in the T-Schedule. Once the T-0 date for a Schedule Group is set the T-Schedule dates are calculated and set for the Schedule Group. If required these individual dates can also be amended.

Tasks can be defined for both a Schedule Group plus also for Deployment. 
Each task is either a standard task or an email task. An email task allows for the specific email to send to be configured.

A PMO user can add or remove Schedule Group tracker bars in the DMS Console depending on what is currently being managed. These tracker bars (as shown above) provide a graphical illustration of the T-Schedule tasks, the time line and the current status of the tasks. By default incomplete tasks show no colour status, however once the date of the task falls within specific ‘amber date’ range the status will automatically change to amber. If the incomplete task reaches its specified date the status will automatically change to red, and once the task is marked as complete the status will automatically change to green.

For a more task driven interface the user can select the Agenda View from the Console. This allows any number of Schedule Groups to be selected and shows the tasks for selected Schedule Groups in date order. See below for an example of the Agenda View.

{{ :dms:task_pane.png?nolink |}}

====== PM Monitoring ======

The status of the tasks is also used to provide monitoring information to users with access to the [[dms:project_dashboard| Project Dashboard]] (a web based project monitoring tool). The RAG status of tasks in a Schedule Group is used to set a highest common denominator status across a project structure.