Issues

Issues are the core superpower of Minicastle. They're designed to help you achieve everything you want to build, fix, or improve. Use Issues when you find a problem or think of something that needs to be:

• Fixed or replaced
• Installed or hung
• Automated or organized
• Designed or coordinated
• Moved, assembed, or disassembled
• Recycled or thrown away

You can also use Issues to help you purchase, hire, or delegate tasks that are too ambitious to DIY. There's even a special emoji for Issues that are too wild or unique to be categorized: 🦄. At the end of the day, Issues can be used to help you with anything you want to do in your house.

Benefits

Issues provide you with the following benefits:

• Track anything that you want to do (fix, build, improve, etc.)
• Break down big or overwhelming problems into smaller chunks of work
• Prioritize and focus based on Areas
• Easily remember what happened or how you fixed a problem when similar issues pop-up in the future
• Enjoy the progress you've made with reporting and visualizations (more coming soon)

Excited to get started? Read-on to make the most of Issues in Minicastle.

Creating an Issue

A well documented, useful Issue will have some or all of the following pieces of information:

• Issue Name: At a high-level, what is the problem? Something like "Paint the bathroom wall" or "Fix the loose cabinet" shoud do the trick
• Issue Type: in a nutshell, what do you need to do? "Fix", "Install", "Replace", and "Paint" are all common Issue types
• Description: Want to provide more details? Give as much context as necessary to the problem - it'll be a useful reference to your Co-Owners, or to yourself in the future
• Related Areas: Where does the problem exist? It could be specific to a single room, an entire floor or area, or even the whole house?
• Project: Issues are a great way to break big tasks down, but you can roll them up into larger efforts of work automatically by tying them to a Project
• Scheduled Date: When do you want to work on this? Add a date to plan around a day or weekend worth of work.
• Cost: How much money have you spent on this? You can be as general or specific as you'd like
• Time Spent: Some problems aren't easy to solve. You can keep a record of time spent on issue to help you appreciate the hard work you've put in
• Status: This is the gratifying part. All Issues are automatically created as "Open", but you can mark them as "Resolved" once you're done! (P.S. More status types are coming soon to capture all of your in-progress work)

Only a Name is required!

Issues can handle a lot of useful information, but don't worry about capturing it all at once! The only required field is the Issue's Name.

Adding Links & Context

Once you've created an Issue, you can start to layer on helpful, contextual information for reference. The easiest way to do that is with Links. Links are a great way to connect issues to:

• Images and videos (like DIY guides)
• Manuals
• Spreadsheets or documents
• Storage services (like Google Drive or Dropbox)

To add a Link to an Issue, first create the Issue, then press the Add Link button:

You'll see a modal to add a url (required), as well as an easier-to-read name for the link (optional). Just make sure to include "https://" in front of any url you add.

Sorting

Sorting is a straightforward but effective way to prioritize your list of issues. Currently, you can use the following options to view your list based on:

• Date Created
• Name
• Status
• Type

Filter & Search

Want to filter your Issues list by Area? Just type area: "[your area name]" into the search bar. For example, if you wanted to view all Issues related to your "Kitchen", you would search for:

area: "Kitchen"

Don't forget the double-quotes around the name of your area!

Pro Tip

You can also automatically filter your Issues list by clicking on the Issues counter from any given area:

Putting Issues on your Calendar

Another effective way to take control of your Issues is to add it to your Calendar in Minicastle. This is a great way to help plan days or wekeends of work when you'll have time available to tackle a bunch of to-dos. To add an Issue to your Calendar, just make sure to give it a Scheduled Date, then head to the Calendar:

All of your open Issues with Scheduled Dates will appear in a single, easy-to-use view:

Creating Issues for Areas & Projects

As we mentioned before, Issues have important relationships with Areas and Projects:

• Issues → Areas:
  • When Issues are connected to an Area, you can easily see everything you have to tackle in a single room, floor, wing, etc.
  • Issues can be related to a single Area or Multiple Areas
• Issues → Projects:
  • When Issues are connected to a Project, you can easily see big problems or efforts (Projects) broken down into smaller chunks (Issues).
  • Soon, you'll also be able to see total cost or time spent on your Projects based on the Issues related to that Project
  • Issues can only be related to a single Project

One way to make these connections is to add "Related Areas" and/or select a Project while you create or edit your Issue. But you can also create Issues directly from Areas or Projects too!

To create an Issue from an Area

1. Go to the Areas tab
2. Find your Area (like "Kitchen")
3. Click on the "..." button and select "Add Issue"

You'll see a modal to create an Issue, and your Area (ex: "Kitchen") will be pre-loaded into the "Related Areas" field. You can still add more Areas to the list if you'd like!

To create an Issue from a Project

1. Go to the Projects tab
2. Find your Project
3. Click on the "..." button and select "Add Issue"

You'll see two options: 1) ceate a "New" Issue, or 2) add an "Existing" Issue. For either option, the Issue will be automatically added to the Project once you finish creating the Issue, or adding it from the existing list of Issues.

What's Next?

What else would you like to see when it comes to Issues? Leave feedback on our roadmap or email us: help@minicastle.com