Tasks
The board of all tasks: create one, assign it, follow it to done.
What it's for
Management → Tasks is the agency's work board. Every task the agency has given anyone is here: who is doing it, what state it is in, when it is due. As an Administrator you are the only person who sees all of them, and the only person who can create a task for anyone — staff or creator.
Before you start
- You're signed in as an Administrator.
- At least one active person exists to give work to. The people you can choose are everyone whose role includes My tasks (by default Administrators, Managers, Chatters and Schedulers) plus the creator logins. Social Media VAs do not get tasks by default.
Steps
Open the board
In the menu on the left, click Management → Tasks. The title is Tasks and under it "Assign work and follow it through to done. Managers split their tasks into subtasks."
Four cards sit at the top: Open tasks, Overdue (amber when above 0), Blocked and Done this week (with "Since Mon, Oct 19" under it — the Monday of this week, New York time).
Create a task
Click New task. A panel called New task opens on the right of the page:
- Title — required, 3 to 140 characters.
- Instructions — optional, up to 5,000 characters.
- Assign to — required. The list is grouped by role, with Creators last.
- Account — appears only when you choose a creator who has linked accounts: Not about one account, or one of that creator's accounts. The small print says "Shown on the creator's task as a badge."
- Due date (ET) — optional. You cannot pick a day in the past.
- Priority — Low, Normal (chosen for you) or High.
Click Assign task.
Find a task later
Two menus filter the board, and both stay in the page address:
- Status: Open (used when you arrive), Overdue, To do, In progress, Blocked, Done, Cancelled, All tasks.
- Person: Everyone, then the people grouped by role, with Creators last.
The cards are ordered open tasks first, then by due date (no due date last), then High, Normal, Low. The board loads at most the 500 newest tasks, and closed ones look faded.
Open a task
Click a card. A panel slides in from the side with the title, a line such as "Jane Example · due Thu, Oct 22 · Normal priority", the status badge, and the instructions (or "No instructions.").
Change a task
In the panel, click Edit. The panel shows Edit task with the same fields, already filled in. Change what you need and click Save changes. If you pick someone else under Assign to, the task moves to that person. Edit only shows on open tasks: on a Done or Cancelled task, click Reopen first.
Move it along
In the panel, under Move to, click the state it should go to. You may add a short note in the box "Optional note with the change" first. On a finished or cancelled task the button is called Reopen.
Talk about it, and attach a file
Type in the Comment box (2 to 1,000 characters) and click Add comment. Under Attachment you can upload one file (PNG, JPEG, WebP or PDF, up to 4 MB); uploading a second one replaces the first.
Split a big task
On an open task that is not already a subtask, click Add subtask. The panel names the task it belongs to and adds "Subtasks are one level deep." Fill in the same fields and click Assign subtask. The subtasks then appear in the panel of the parent task with their own assignee and state.
The five states
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| To do | Given to someone, not started |
| In progress | Being worked on |
| Blocked | Stuck, waiting for something |
| Done | Finished |
| Cancelled | Dropped. Only an Administrator can cancel |
- The person doing the task can move it between To do, In progress, Blocked and Done.
- Only an Administrator can cancel an open task, and only an Administrator can Reopen a task that is Done or Cancelled (it goes back to To do).
- Overdue is a red badge on a task whose due date has passed and which is still open. Nothing happens automatically — it is a warning for you.
What you should see
- After creating: a message at the bottom of the screen, Task assigned., and a new card on the board. In the task's History, "Created and assigned to Jane Example."
- After a move: Status updated. and a history line such as "To do → In progress." or, with a note, "To do → In progress: waiting for the photos".
- After a comment: Comment added. and the comment in the History, newest at the bottom, each line with the person's name and the time in New York time.
- After an edit: Task updated. and "Edited the task." in the history — or "Edited and reassigned to Jane Example." when you changed the assignee.
- A task given to a creator carries a Creator badge, and the comment box warns "Comments stay inside the agency. The creator sees the title, instructions, due date, file and status changes."
- An empty board says "No tasks yet" with "Create a task and assign it to someone." A filter that hides everything says "Nothing matches this filter".
Test checklist
Good to know
You are testing on real data
The test app shares its data with the live app, so a task you create really lands on that person's My tasks. Name test tasks "TEST task", give them to yourself or to a made-up test person, and cancel them when you're done.
Open tasks with a due date also show on the agency calendar as "Task due". See Calendar.
The person you assign gets an email, New task: … (unless Task assigned is switched off in Email settings). In the test app it lands in the outbox instead: check it there, along with the task's History and the assignee's My tasks page.
Subtasks are one level deep on purpose. A Manager can split their own task between Chatters and Schedulers, but a subtask is the end of the chain. See My tasks.
Known issues
- The person filter only lists people who can be given work right now, so the tasks of someone who has been deactivated cannot be filtered by their name.
- Only an Administrator can attach a file to a task; a Manager cannot add one to a task they delegated.