How to work a list, a board and a calendar

A department and a project each show their tasks as a List, a Board or a Calendar, switched with the pill tabs at the top. It is one set of tasks in three shapes rather than three places work can hide. There is also a workspace-wide board and calendar, reached from What are tasks?.

When do you want each one?

• List to read and to act in bulk. It is the only view with checkboxes, so a batch job starts here. See How to change many tasks at once.
• Board to move work along. Dragging a card is the fastest way to change a status.
• Calendar to see the month, including milestones and campaign markers that are not tasks at all.

How does the list view work?

Tasks are grouped by status, each group carrying a count, with a collapsed Done (N) section at the foot so finished work is present without being in the way.

The + on a group header adds a task straight into that status, with the department already filled in.

Sub-tasks nest one level under their parent when the parent is in the same list. When it is not, they read as ordinary rows.

How does the board work?

One column per status, in order: Backlog, To do, In progress, Done. Drag a card between columns to change its status, and drop it where you want it inside a column.

Each card shows its priority glyph, a Waiting on N badge if it is blocked, a sub-task count, its due date and the assignee's avatar.

Add a task straight into a column with the + on its header or Add task at its foot. The new task takes that column's status and you pick the department in the dialog.

Only top-level tasks appear as cards. Sub-tasks stay on their parent, which keeps a column readable when a job has eight steps.

Dragging a blocked card asks for confirmation, with Move anyway available. See How to break a task down and put it in order.

If a card snaps back to where it started, that is a rights answer rather than a glitch: the move was refused because you cannot edit tasks in that task's department, and the message says so.

How does the calendar work?

A month grid of every task that has a due date, with ‹ Prev and Next › to move between months. The chips in the header filter to one department, or back to All.

The colour down the left edge of each chip is its priority: red for urgent, amber for high, blue for medium, grey for low.

Two things on the grid are not tasks. A violet flag is a milestone and a blue megaphone is a campaign target date, both shown on their own date. Those come from What are projects and campaigns?.

Busy days show three chips and then +N more. Switch to a list or filter to one department when a day is fuller than that.

A task without a due date is not on the calendar. Giving it one, from the panel, puts it there.

Where is the whole-workspace view?

The Tasks home header takes you to a board covering every task in the business, and Tasks views in the sidebar holds Calendar alongside Roadmap and Urgent.

The workspace board is a good morning scan. For filtered work, a department or a project board is the better screen, because those carry the cycle and department filters.

For projects, campaigns and milestones on a timeline rather than a grid, use the roadmap, covered in How to use the roadmap.

How much does a list load at once?

Up to 500 tasks in one go, newest first. That is above the point where reading a list stops being how anybody finds anything.

When you are hunting rather than reading, filter first. A department, a project or a cycle narrows the set before you start scrolling.