When creating to do’s why not add a field for estimated hours? then, the Dashboard could function as one does in the car, with “gauges” to show completion vs. requiements.. for both the to do’s and milestones they are attached to.. The added field would be a great service to individuals managing projects to view and communicate project status. Also, by adding the estimate field to reports, they could be used more effectively to assess performance.

I think this is an excellent idea. I personally wouldn’t need the gauges, but I oftentimes need to assign a task, but with an estimate, so that if the person performing the task sees they are going to go over the estimate, they know to contact me and discuss it. I don’t always want the client to see my todo-level estimates, so I don’t want to put the estimate in the description. The way I currently do this is by assigning time to the new task, with 0.0 hours, and in the description for that time I put the estimate. The downside though is that unless you do this for every task, the assignee will not always remember to check that first time entry. Furthermore it is somewhat annoying to not be able to see the estimate on the task list screen, when you are browsing the open tasks with the intent of picking a quick one before you head off to lunch…

I would like to see an optional textbox for Estimate. Another one for Due date might be nice too. Having the ability to make those client viewable or just “my company” viewable would be nice as well.