--- title: How to set up the kinds of work your team does url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/workspace-admin/sub-task-types description: Build the shared vocabulary of work your teams plan with, then apply each type to the departments that use it. --- > Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further. # How to set up the kinds of work your team does **Settings › Sub-task types** is your workspace's shared vocabulary for kinds of work: Blog Post, Video, Sweep Floors, Close the Register. They are the tags you put on a planned item, and the menu a department picks its defaults from. ## What are they actually for? [#what-are-they-actually-for] Two jobs, and they connect. You tag a planned item on a project with one or more types. When that item is promoted into a real task, **each tag becomes a sub-task**, pre-filled from the department's templates. So tagging a planned post with Blog Post and Video produces a task with those two sub-tasks already on it, assigned and dated. See . ## What should be on the list? [#what-should-be-on-the-list] The kinds of work your teams actually do, in your own words. Nothing here assumes what business you are in. "Blog Post" and "Sweep Floors" are equally valid entries, and a warehouse team's list looks nothing like a content team's. A new workspace starts with an empty list, so this is a screen somebody has to visit. ## How do you add and rename one? [#how-do-you-add-and-rename-one] Add one from the field at the top. Rename one by clicking its name, typing, and pressing Enter, or Escape to undo the edit. Names can run to 60 characters. A duplicate name is matched regardless of case, so typing "tiktok" when "TikTok" already exists selects the existing one rather than making a second. ## How do you make one available to a team? [#how-do-you-make-one-available-to-a-team] From the per-type menu, apply it to one or more departments. The menu shows each department's colour dot and icon, and the screen shows which departments already carry each type. **A type is only offered on a project's planning picker if it has been applied to that project's department.** A department with none assigned gets an empty picker, by design. That is the step people miss. Adding a type to the catalog does not put it in front of anybody until it is applied to a team. ## What happens when you remove one? [#what-happens-when-you-remove-one] It stops appearing in future pickers, and anything already tagged with it **keeps the tag**. The confirmation says so. That means renaming is safer than removing. Renaming carries existing work along with it, and removing leaves old items tagged with something that is no longer on the menu. ## How does this fit with department templates? [#how-does-this-fit-with-department-templates] The catalog is the list of possible types. A department's **sub-task templates** say what happens for each one on that team: who it goes to, when it is due relative to the parent, and at what priority. Set the catalog here, then set each team's defaults in . ## Where should you start? [#where-should-you-start] With three or four types that cover most of what one team plans, applied to that team, and their templates set. Then watch for a month. The types people actually reach for become obvious, and the ones nobody used can be removed before they are anybody's habit.