At my organization there is a process that goes in to preparing for our Board of Director's Meetings that begins 6 weeks beforehand and involves about 9 different steps. We have a template document that reads:
Date -> Action
6 weeks ahead -> do X
5-6 weeks ahead -> do Y
etc
What I want to do is create this template in SharePoint, so when the person creates the meeting event item on the Board's SharePoint calendar, it also creates a task list of these events leading up to it, and then plots them on a page using video.
What I am wondering is this:
1) I assume I am to use a tasks list for the items leading up to the event, but how does that go down? Do I, a)create a template tasks list where all the due dates are calucalted fields for (DATE - 6 weeks) or something? b) use a workflow to open up a form where they set all the dates and then create the tasks and add the event based on that. c) how do I store this information, as part of meeting workspace?
I have a vague idea of having a template list that stores the task names and descriptions, and the lead-in times in advance of the meeting, and it would serve to provide the parameters for when creating the specific meetings. When you create a new meeting the process woudl reference that master list to build out the tasks leading up to it. If that were the case, would that mean that if I updated that master list by, say, changing the description of a task , all the lists that were created using it for parameters would then change too to reflect that? Or would they be independant? If the answer is, it depends on how you implement the solution, could you please describe the two ways of implemention that would produce those different results.
What I am trying to achieve is to take that tasks list, build a visio timeline from it, and add that timeline to the DispForm.aspx in a visio services web part so when you view an event you can see where in the process things are leading up to it. I think that would be hypercool.
I am looking for any kind of input on anything related to this topic, I'm trying to collect some food for thought about how you guys would approach this. Analyze my approach, or jot down your instinct, its all good