Introduce tasks to improve granularity of workflow and task management for submissions

[alex-wreschnig]

This is a foundational issue to coordinate some work around a broad theme that came up in the 2019 Pittsburgh sprint through the UI/UX group.

In conversations with @NateWr , it seems that OJS 3.X does not currently have a finely detailed understanding of what the current task is and who needs to be working on it--in part because OJS 3 has a more open-ended concept of phases instead of a strictly rigid workflow. He expressed a goal of expanding OJS 3's understanding of tasks. For the 2019 Pgh UI/UX group, this would support:

• Users understanding what has been assigned to them ( Add consistent notifications for tasks that require direct action by the current user (Submissions component) #4958 )
• Better sorting in the submission list component ( Change the sort of the submission list component to be action-based rather than submission ID-based #4960 )
• A much clearer big-picture view for editors and managers ( [Sprint/UIUX] More Detailed Stage Indicators on Dashboard #4103 )
• (Potentially) Better filtering of the submissions list ( [Sprint/UIUX] Quick-Filter Options/Buttons on Dashboard #4101 )
• A related issue that the 2019 group didn't directly touch on: a more granular view of the peer review process ( Add review assignment details and progress tracking to submission lists #4172 )

Background

We had a number of people who edit, manage, and otherwise work on journals attend, and they (and their representatives) provided repeated feedback around a consistent theme: while the current submissions list component is okay, it could be a lot better!

A lot of the feedback revolved around the idea of having a granular understanding of who was assigned what task for which submission. In order to do that, we need to understand

1. What the current assigned task is, and
2. Who that task is assigned to.

From PKP Sprint Pittsburgh (2019/07): UI/UX group
UI/UX group notes from the Pittsburgh sprint

[alex-wreschnig]

Also possibly related to the more general issue #4099

[NateWr]

Just an FYI that I plan for this to be the issue against which we can work towards a generic "tasks" system that allows tasks to be configured, assigned, completed and overdue for each stage.

I will write more on this in the future. Tentatively assigning this to 3.3.

[dagosalas]

It would be great if this topic was given high priority.

[NateWr]

@dagosalas unfortunately this is a major project which needs significant resources to realize. We had planned to focus on this for 3.3 and then 3.4, but in both cases other work was prioritized. It seems unlikely that this will be completed in the next two major cycles, unless we were to reverse our scheduled priorities.

That said, we plan some major improvements to submission tracking during the 3.5 dev cycle which will cover some of these cases -- mostly tracking within the review stage.

[librariam]

I hope it is appropriate to add here a suggestions from one of the PKP|PS publishers to have all task notifications include the article ID number for the relevant article. At this time it appears to be included in some but not all notifications.

[NateWr]

It's not quite fit for this issue. But with #3253 and #5716 it should be possible to add the submission id as a variable to the subject and body of all related email templates. Those will be in 3.4.

[librariam]

@NateWr do pop up task notifications use the same variables as email templates? If so, I can add this suggestion to either or both of the tickets you mention.

[NateWr]

Ah, I see you're talking specifically about the Tasks dropdown. This issue is slightly different -- about tracking submissions through the submissions list. I don't know of an existing request that matches what you're talking about.