How to make a task repeat

Weekly stock counts, month-end reconciliations and the Monday call with Portside Mills are the same job on a rhythm. A repeating task creates itself on that rhythm, so nobody has to remember to raise it. The switch lives in the due-date calendar of any task in What are tasks?, covered in How to edit a task.

Your workspace may use its own word for a task; Settings › Terminology shows both.

Before you start

Setting up and changing schedules needs the Set tasks to repeat permission. Leads and admins have it by default, and an admin can change that on Settings › Permissions, as covered in How to set who can do what.

How do you set one up?

Open the due-date calendar on a task and turn on Repeats. You can do this in the New task dialog or on the panel of a task that already exists. Repeating belongs to the date, which is why it lives inside the calendar rather than as a field of its own.

Then choose the rhythm:

• Daily, Weekly or Monthly, with an interval from 1 to 52 next to every. That is what makes "every 2 weeks" possible.
• For weekly, pick the days it lands on with the Mon to Sun toggles. Turn on at least one.
• For monthly, set On day to a day of the month from 1 to 31.

The closed date control reads the rhythm back, for example "Every 2 weeks", so you can check it at a glance.

Where does the schedule start?

From the date in the calendar. In New task, the date you pick is the first day of the schedule, and the calendar reads "Starts" with that date. Pick a date before you create the task, because the dialog asks for one when Repeats is on.

With Repeats on, the dialog's button reads Create recurring task. Pressing it sets up the schedule, and the first task appears on that start date rather than straight away.

On a task that already exists, the task stays where it is and the repeats begin after it. The calendar says "This task stays on" its date, and a message confirms "Repeats from" the next date when you close the calendar.

A task with no due date can repeat too. Its calendar reads "Starts from the next matching day.", and the first new task lands on the next day that fits the rhythm.

When do the tasks actually appear?

Within fifteen minutes of their time, rather than the instant you save. If you set up a schedule and nothing appears straight away, wait for the next check.

Each task arrives at 9:00 in the morning, US Central time, unless the schedule has a due time. With a due time, the task arrives at that time instead.

What is the difference between a schedule and its tasks?

The schedule is the template. Each task it produces is an ordinary task with its own panel, so you can reassign it, comment on it, change its date and complete it like any other.

Moving one occurrence to Thursday leaves the series alone. That is what you want when one week is unusual.

The Repeats controls are the exception. Open the due-date calendar on any task the schedule made and the schedule is already loaded there, with a line such as "Series: Weekly on Mon". Change the rhythm and close the calendar to update the whole series ("Schedule updated.").

Where do you manage every schedule a team has?

On the department's page, under Work › Departments. Its List tab has a Recurring section once the team has at least one schedule. People with Set tasks to repeat see it.

Each row shows the title, the rhythm in plain English, the next date it runs, and buttons for Edit and Pause (or Resume on a paused one).

Edit opens Edit recurring task, with the title, Due time, the next run date, the frequency, the interval, and the weekdays or day of the month. Leave Next run on blank to keep the current date. Press Save changes when you are done.

How do you stop one without losing its history?

Pause it. A paused schedule stops producing tasks and keeps its rule and every task it has already made. Its row in Recurring is struck through and ends in "paused".

You can pause in two places. Press Pause on the row, or switch Repeats off in the calendar of any task the schedule made ("Schedule paused."). The calendar then says that no new tasks will be created.

Resume on the row picks the series up again, as does switching Repeats back on. If a schedule ever hits a problem it pauses itself and leaves the other schedules running, so a struck-through row is the first place to look when a task stops arriving.

What about files and cycles?

Both belong to one occurrence, not to the series. Add files to each task once it appears, as covered in How to add files and comments to a task, and choose its cycle from the task's Cycle row (see How to set up and work in cycles).