How to work a list, a board and a calendar

Every department and every project shows its What are tasks? as a List, a Board or a Calendar, switched with the pill tabs at the top. Open one from Work › Departments, then the department, then a project if you want one. A project also has an Overview tab, covered in What are projects and campaigns?.

It is one set of tasks in three shapes rather than three places work can hide. The whole workspace has a board and a calendar of its own as well, covered below. Your workspace may use its own word for "task"; Settings › Terminology shows both.

When do you want each one?

• List to read and to act in bulk. A department's or a project's list is where the checkboxes are, 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, campaign dates and planned items 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 opens New task with the department already filled in. The status starts on To do whichever group you clicked, so change it in the dialog if you need another.

Subtasks nest one level under their parent when the parent is in the same list. When it is not, the row reads as the subtask's title followed by its parent's, such as "Email · Back to school".

How do you find one task in a long list?

Type in the Search tasks or customer box, or press Filter (or the F key) and pick a property. Every department and project list and board has both, and so does the workspace board.

The menu offers Status, Priority, Due date and Blocked. It adds Assignee when the tasks are on more than one person, Project on a department page with projects, and Department on the workspace board when there are two or more.

Each filter shows as a chip: click the word in the middle to switch between "is" and "is not".

While anything is filtered, the bar shows how many tasks match, such as "12 of 40", and Clear puts everything back. Searching for a parent task's title also finds its subtasks.

How do you see one cycle?

When your workspace has cycles, a department or project page has an All cycles menu in the header. Pick a cycle and the list and the board show just that cycle's tasks.

Admins get a pencil beside the chosen cycle to edit it. How to set up and work in cycles covers what a cycle is and how to set one up.

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 the assignee's photo or initials, its priority, a Waiting on N badge if it is blocked, a subtask count and its due date. Only top-level tasks appear as cards; subtasks stay on their parent, which keeps a column readable when a job has eight steps.

Hover a column to add a task straight into it, with the + on its header or Add task at its foot. The new task takes that column's status. On a department or project board the department is filled in; on the workspace board you pick it in the dialog.

What if a card will not move?

Dragging a blocked card into Done asks first, with Move blocked task? and a Move anyway button. See How to break a task down and put it in order.

If a card snaps back with a message saying it could not move the task and it is back where it was, the move was refused. Most often you cannot edit tasks in that task's department. How to work out who can do what in your workspace explains how to check.

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

Busy days show three tasks and then +N more. Switch to the list when a day is fuller than that. A task without a due date is not on the calendar until you give it one.

Some entries on the grid are not tasks, and which ones you see depends on the calendar:

• A department's calendar shows its milestones as violet flags.
• A project's calendar shows its milestones, plus its planned items as amber markers. If you can add planned items, hover a day and press + to plan one on that date. See How to plan what goes out and when.
• The Company calendar shows milestones from every project, plus each campaign's target date as a blue megaphone. See How to add and reschedule milestones and How to set up a campaign.

Each department names its planned items itself, so yours may use another word. See How to set up departments.

Where is the whole-workspace view?

Two places in the Work area cover every department at once:

• Work › Tasks › Board is a board of every task in the business. Its Filter menu includes Department when your workspace has two or more.
• Work › Calendar is the Company calendar. Chips in its header narrow it to one department, or back to All.

The Tasks overview reaches both from its header buttons, Board and Company calendar. For projects, campaigns and milestones on a timeline rather than a grid, use the roadmap, covered in How to use the roadmap.

How many tasks does a view show?

Each list and board loads up to 500 tasks, in the order the cards sit on the board. A department or a project page loads only its own tasks, so start there when your workspace is large.