How to plan what goes out and when

Lay out planned items on a project's Overview by date, in order or by stage, then promote one into a task with its subtasks.

The planning section is the main column of a project's Overview, directly under the project's title and summary. You plan what goes out there before any of it is work.

When a plan is ready to start, you promote it and it becomes a real task with its subtasks already filled in. Start at How to start a project if you have no project yet.

Before you start

Adding planned items needs the Add planned items to projects row on Settings › Permissions, which every member has by default. With that row you can also edit, move and delete the items you added yourself.

Promoting an item, and editing or deleting somebody else's, needs the Edit or remove anyone's planned items row, which leads have by default. Both rows are checked in the project's department.

Each team names this thing itself. One department calls a planned item an Editorial, another a Prep, another a Visit. The word comes from the What this team plans field on that department in Settings › Departments, described in How to set up departments. When nobody has set it, the section is headed Items.

Why plan separately from tasks?

Because a plan is a decision about what and when, and a task is a job with an owner. Turning every idea into a task at once fills somebody's list with work nobody has agreed.

Fairgreen Golf Co. plans the Autumn drop as fifteen items: two lookbook posts, four emails, a launch video and a set of store visits. Most weeks, half of them move.

Moving a planned item is one drag. Moving fifteen tasks with assignees and dates is an afternoon.

How do you add a planned item?

Press Add at the right of the section heading. On a Timeline project you can also hover a day on the spine and press the Add for button, which names that date. The default view shows only days that already have items, so for another day use Add or switch to All days.

On the project's Calendar tab, hover any day and press its +.

The dialog is titled New item, or New followed by your team's word. It holds:

A title, which is required.
A write-up, for the angle, products and timing.
A Target date, which is optional.
Sub-task types, the tags that become subtasks when the item is promoted.
Create a document when promoted to a task, a switch that starts on.

Press Add item to save it. The button carries your team's word too.

Which sub-task types can you tag?

The pills offered are the sub-task types assigned to this project's department. An admin assigns them in Settings › Sub-task types, covered in How to set up the kinds of work your team does.

For a type the department does not have yet, type it into the Add a one-off type… box under the pills and press Add. It is tagged on this item and added to the department's list straight away, so the next item can use it too.

How does a Timeline project lay out its items?

A Timeline project shows its items on a vertical date spine, one row per day with the date on the left. Items dated today or later come first, soonest at the top. Undated items sit under Unscheduled, and earlier items sit under Past, collapsed behind a count such as Past (3).

Two buttons at the top of the section change how much of the spine shows:

With items shows only the days that have something on them. It is the default, and it carries your team's word, such as With editorials.
All days shows every day from the first upcoming item to the last, empty or not. Use it when you are looking for gaps.

Your choice is remembered on this browser. Drag an item to another day to move it, or drop it on Unscheduled to take its date off. A long write-up collapses behind Show more.

How does a List project lay out its items?

A List project shows its items as one column in the team's own order, with no dates grouping them. Anyone who can add planned items can drag one into a new place, including items somebody else added. Drop it on Drop here to move to the bottom to send it to the end.

An empty List reads "Nothing here yet. Add the first item." On the iPhone app, an item's menu in a List project offers Move up and Move down. See How to use chat and tasks on your phone.

The layout is a project setting, chosen when the project is created or changed later from Layout on the Properties card. See How to start a project.

How does a Board project lay out its items?

A Board project shows its items in columns, one per stage, so you can see where each one is at a glance. The columns are your workspace's stages for project items: To do, In progress and Done, unless an admin renamed them.

Drag a card into another column to move it to that stage, or up and down a column to reorder it. Moving cards needs the same Add planned items to projects row as adding them. A new item starts in the first stage that is not finished, To do by default, and an empty column reads, for example, No items.

An admin names and orders the stages in Settings › Stages › Project items, and they are the same for every Board project in the workspace. Choose them deliberately, such as Idea, Filming, Edited and Posted for a content team. If a stage is removed while items still sit in it, those items show under No stage until you drag them into another column.

The Board layout is for the planned items on the Overview. The project's Board tab is a different view: it shows the project's tasks.

How do you edit, move or delete an item?

Hover the item and open its ⋯ menu. It offers:

Edit, which reopens the dialog. Press Save changes when you are done.
Move to project, which lists the other projects in the same department. It reads No other projects when there are none. Moving an item that was already promoted takes its task with it.
Delete, which removes the item from the plan.

How do you turn a plan into work?

Hover an item that has not been promoted yet (its card has a dashed border) and press Promote. The Promote to task dialog opens with the item's title, write-up and target date already in it. Set the task's status, assignee, priority and due date as you would for any task.

Under Subtasks · one per channel, edit freely, the item's sub-task types come ticked, pre-filled from the department's defaults. The department's other sub-task types are listed unticked, so you can add any of them with a tick. Each row takes its own assignee, priority and due date.

Add another subtask adds a row you name yourself, up to twenty rows in all. Untick any row you do not want, then press the button, which reads like Promote 1 task, 3 subtasks.