Feature Idea: Actual due dates

[codingthat]

Summary: Due date field type, a la "created" and "updated" but meant to track the date (and possibly time) a task is due. As with Trello, the colour of the card can change depending on the current amount of time until (or past) the given timestamp we are.

How important this is to me and why:

Importance: High

Use cases:

1. Completely general for both personal and professional use. If something needs to be done today, or within the next hour, it's valuable to have a program let you track that and remind you of it.

Additional context / similar features: This is a basic feature of Trello for the above reason.

To the extent that the "due date" seen in the screenshots suggests such functionality, it's misleading as currently implemented: The "due date" field in the template turns out to be only a text label. I guess that's technically sortable if you stick to ISO timestamps / datestamps, but there's no inherent date functionality, i.e. the software cannot display a calendar view, or calculate how far away a task is, or sort correctly if you prefer a 12-hour clock (e.g. "11:00 AM" > "1:00 PM").

(It would make sense that the import scripts would take this data from Trello, Asana, etc. once implemented.)

[chenilim]

Thanks for submitting this @codingthat! Yes, definitely plan to add a date property type. Would love to hear more feedback from others on what details might be important to you, e.g.:

• Date + time?
• Date range?
• Timezone handling?
• Other things?

[Oxalin]

Hi there. Just began working with FocalBoard for work.

About date type: this is one of the first type I looked for when adding a task. Two main reasons behind this need:

• firstly, tasks may need both a start date and a due date. As you know, a task may already be planned (which the created date seems fulfill), but it may only start and begin in the future. So for now, I'm using a text property for both dates, but it is not as useful as it could be (sort by, group by, filter).
• secondly, this will be needed if at some point we expect to be able to visualize the tasks through time. This would be really useful for management. Here, I see a specific need to identify a date property as a "start" or as a "due" date.

Now, having simply a date (without a time) would be fine for me, but others may have different views on that matter. Maybe time or datetime could be another type which would allow to answer to different needs.

I would prefer to work with two different date properties if a start date is needed than working with a date range (from - to). That being said, as long as there is a way to set both dates independently (or keep one undefined), I would be fine.

I don't have a need for timezone handling, but I do see cases where this could be useful.

[Oxalin]

I would add two other considerations about date, time or datetime type:

• the date should follow the regional settings by default (locale), but could be personalized in the app if needed. I live in Québec, Canada. Here, we have a proposed official way Canada wide of writing date, which is "YYYY-MM-DD". However, because of the USA influence and the long date format in both official langages ("20 Janvier 2021" or "January 20, 2021"), we sometime see "DD/MM/YYYY" and "MM/DD/YYYY" or even "DD/MM/YY" and "MM/DD/YY" (a living nightmare).
• if a time type should be added, locale should be prefered, but it could be personalized in the app. Here again, both systems are in use (on a 12-hour time combined with AM/PM or on a 24-hour time), but the english part of the country tends to use the 12-hour format like the USA or the UK, while the french part mostly uses 24-hour format (officially suggested by the Office québécois de la langue française).

[codingthat]

@Oxalin you covered all my points exactly. :)

[vonHartz]

I mostly concur with @Oxalin as well. Though I would also like to have time, not only a date, to keep track of deadlines easily.

[mblennegard]

Referring to issue #38 to link these two.

For this issue regarding actual due dates, it would be neat to have some kind of reminder functionality in place as well.

[q-wertz]

Reminders and an "overall view of next due cards" (that summarizes due cards over all boards, compare e.g. to nextcloud Deck) would really be a crucial enhancement...

[akiross]

If I can add my opinion, reminders and notifications would be a great addition: when a card is due, a message is sent to its owner reminding about that card.