Using TW to create a checklist dashboard

#1

So, I’ve been sent here by @number6@fosstodon.org on the fediverse, to talk about using tiddlywiki as a possible solution to my problem. You can see my original thread, in which I ruthlessly exploit my nephews to produce a fatuous example suitable for Mastodon character limits here.

I have a number of tasks I need to do for year closure on my accountancy system, that I need to do repeatedly for a number of different companies. These tasks are not scriptable, so I’m creating a checklist to go through, and thus ensure that (a) I have performed all the tasks in all the companies (b) I know what to do next year.

The task list would be something like:

  • ensure all invoices are posted
  • create the closing journal entry for 2022 and open 2023
  • post the closing journal entry
  • close the 2022 financial year
  • create a trial balance at the end of the year

(Though there are more steps, it’s more of a taster.)

Ideally, I’d like to have a “dashboard view” where I can see at a glance all the tasks that have been performed for each of my companies, in for example, a table with a task per row and a company per column. I have around 20 companies to deal with this year.

The suggestion on mastodon is that I can use some tiddlywiki data tiddlers for something like this, and for other periodic checklists that I have to run on the 20 companies on a monthly, quarterly, etc basis. I’ve not used TW in years, so consider me a noob for practical purposes. How would I go about doing this?

#2

Welcome to the forum, Moof!

In your original description, it seemed to be important that the list be in some web-app kind of thingy. Wondered about the motivation for that?

I’m seeing what I can put together.

#3

There’s two main reasons I’d like web access:

I want to be able to link to the checklist from the documentation that explains why we are doing what we’re doing, and have people activate checklists for themselves to track a particular operation. For example:

To close the account you need to perform the following steps: [Launch a checklist!]

  1. Ensure there’s no pending journal items that need posting
  2. Check the balance and move the remaining balance to the new account or to the general P/L account
  3. Close the account
  4. Notify head of accounting that you’ve closed it

that bold button would ideally link to a new checklist with those items from the template that they can then check off.

It would also be useful to share the status, both of individual checklists and to the matrix checklist with colleagues and managers so they can see the status at a glance.

#4

Not sure if this is what you were wanting … you seem to have additional criteria. But here’s what I’ve got:

image

which you can try for yourself by dragging and dropping the following file into your empty tiddlywiki file:

donalds-company-v001.json (2.0 KB)

Each “nephew” has it’s own data tiddler tagged as “Company” They all correspond to a “Master” tiddler which is used to generate the question column. In TW you can quickly clone a tiddler, so once you know your base questions, it’s easy to add more companies.

1 Like
#5

Just wanted to add that to link to a specific tiddler in tiddlywiki, we can use permalink:

https://tiddlywiki.com/#PermaLinks

And there is now a plugin that allow to store and share the tiddler in the url: Revived share plugin - #16 by btheado, usable here: https://tiddlywiki.com/share

So this may be a way for your users to share their progress (copy/pasting a link) ? Or they could create a tiddlywiki instance on tiddlyhost. It’s also possible to export a tiddler in a single file, several file format are available (json, tid, …). I know that some users managed to setup multi users wiki using the BOB plugin so this might be another possibility

There is also federatial but I never had the opportunity to use it : https://tiddlywiki.com/static/Federatial.html

#6

This is indeed what I’m looking for, at least to get it working for the moment.

I’ll have a play with the share plugin, it looks potentially useful and close to what I’m after.

Tiddlyhost seems like a good option here, too, for sharing existing checklists, but I’d need to find URL switches to clone what you’ve called “Master” here and switch the tag.

And for individual checklists, I’d have to create a tiddler and then find a way of cloning that setup using a url. Presumably, that’s what the share extension does.

#7

Tiddlyhost offer cloning of wiki from a url (https://tiddlyhost.com/sites/new?clone=NAMEOFTHETIDDLYHOSTWIKI) so this is definitively a possibility ! But once a wiki is cloned, it becomes completely independent from the source so further updates on the source wiki wont be linked to the clone, unless you package the relevant tiddlers in a plugin library that the users can then update on their wikis.

With the share plugin you share the tiddler in url and import it into a wiki, so maybe it would be a better option if the users doesnt need to keep a permanent wiki for their checklist

#8

Thank you very much!

1 Like
#9

Welcome to the community Moof. If you are committed to checklists in a professional sense there is a great book, it explains both the history but also helps understand how and why we can make sophisticated, effective and simple checklists The Checklist Manifesto .

I plan one day to reread the book with tiddlywiki also in front of me to extract and model powerful methods.

#10

@Moof - Big warning of doom: Note that tiddlers self destruct unless you tell your friends about how excellent TiddlyWiki is on Mastodon.

I can’t believe the other guys in this thread didn’t inform you about this. Luckily I was here to save you.