Creating Checklists

You can create checklists to keep track of work related to your uploaded Flare projects.

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Permission Required?

No special permission is required for this activity. All authors who are associated with the project are allowed.

How to Create a Checklist

  1. Select Projects on the left side of the interface, then click a project name to open it.
  2. At the top of the interface, click Checklists.
  3. In the toolbar click . The Create Checklist dialog opens.
  4. On the Settings tab, complete the Name field.

  5. From the Checklist Type field, you can select a generic or project files checklist type. However, if you plan to use a template (see next step), you can skip this step because the template will populate this field (and others) automatically.

    • Generic List This lets you add a checklist where each row is manually created. The checklist can pertain to anything you want.

    • Project Files This lets you add a checklist where the rows are based on files from your Flare project. Most commonly, these kinds of checklists will be used to track the progress of topics as you edit them, but if you like, you can create checklists that include any other kinds of files from the project (e.g., template pages, images, TOCs, targets, skins).

  6. (Optional) From the Templates field, you can choose a template that you’ve previously created (see Creating Checklist Templates). Information from the template (i.e., type, description, columns, rows, notes) will populate the corresponding fields in this dialog. After the fields are populated, you can edit them if necessary.

  7. (Optional) You can complete the Description field if you want a more detailed explanation of the checklist for yourself and other writers on your team.

  8. Select the Columns tab. Then create columns by typing a label in the text box and pressing ENTER or clicking . Repeat this for each column you want to add. You can use the up and down arrows to change the order of the columns (the column at the top of the dialog will appear at the far left in the checklist, and the column at the bottom will appear at the far right).

  9. Select the Rows tab to create rows for the checklist. This is done differently, depending on the type of checklist you are creating.

    • Generic List In the text box, type the label for a row and click . Repeat this for each row you want to add. You can use the up and down arrows to change the order of the rows.

      You can also complete the Add Note field for any row.

    • Project Files Your project folders and files are shown on the Rows tab, with check boxes next to each item. Any item with a check mark will be included in the checklist. It is likely that you will only want to include certain files in the checklist. Therefore, remove the check marks for any files you want to exclude. If you want to include a small number of items in a folder, the easiest thing to do is to begin by removing the check mark from the folder. Then navigate to the items you want to include and select them.

      Example You have a Flare project where the Content Explorer looks as follows, and you want to create a checklist that includes only the indicated topics.

      When you create the checklist, you will see the following on the Rows tab:

      You don’t want any of the files from the Project Organizer to be part of the checklist, and you don’t want the main project file included either. So you can remove both of those check marks.

      The files to be included in the checklist are topics, which are found in the Content folder. However, most of the topics and other files from the Content folder will not be part of the checklist. So the easiest thing is to initially remove the check mark from that folder as well.

      To choose specific topics in the Content folder, click the arrow to the left to expand it. You will see all of the subfolders and files within it.

      Since you want all of the topics in “B-Feature-Topics” to be included, you can just click the check box next to that subfolder. If you expand that subfolder, you will see that all of the topics within it are automatically selected.

      You only want two of the topics in the “D-Reference” subfolder to be included, so expand that folder and select those topics.

      And finally, you want the Home topic at the root level of the Content folder to be included, so select it. The dialog should now look as follows when all subfolders are collapsed. Notice that the “D-Reference” subfolder has a small dash instead of a check mark; that’s because only some of the topics within it are selected.

  10. Click Save. The checklist is created and its name appears on the left side of the interface. The checklist graph and items appear to the right.
  11. If you have created a checklist based on project files, you will see the first folder level (e.g., Content).

    Note Since the Show Charts option is selected by default, the first folder level will display below the checklist graph. With Show Charts activated, you can click the arrow on the side of the current chart to see a different chart (e.g., Total % Complete, Checklist Item % Complete, and Checklist Completion Table). You can hide the visual display by clicking the Show Charts option.

    To navigate to a particular subfolder or set of files, click that folder. You will then see the content within that folder, as well as a breadcrumbs trail.

    When you open a folder that contains files, you will see a circle for each column. These circles are where you set the status of each item.

    Note You will not see the status circles for rows represented by folders. You can set the status for files only.

    If you want to navigate back to a particular folder or subfolder, click it in the breadcrumbs.

  12. Click a circle and it will cycle through all the statuses each time you click. Alternatively, you can click the down arrow next to the circle and choose one of the statuses from the context menu.

    • To Do
    • In Progress
    • Complete
    • N/A Select this status if a particular column is not applicable for that row.

    Depending on your selection, the appearance of the circle changes, and the graph is updated.

    Tip You can click the ellipsis in a column heading to set all of the items in that column to the same status. Click the drop-down at the top of the context menu to apply the settings to the current page of items, or to all pages in the checklist.

    You can also click the Filter drop-down in the context menu to either select to filter only on a specific status, or clear a status type from the checklist.

  13. (Optional) If you want to add a comment for a particular row, you can click in the Note cell and type it.

Tip Although there is not currently any software integration between project checklists and tasks, you might find it helpful to create your own associations between the two as part of your overall workflow. See Tasks.

Let’s say you have created a task to write a particular group of reference topics.

When creating or editing this task, instead of listing all of the things you need to do, you can paste a copy of the checklist URL in your task description and create a link to it.

Once you finish the checklist, you can return to the Tasks page to move the task card to the Completed milestone.