Working with tasks

Create tasks wherever you're working: from the global +, directly in a project or on Team, or through an AI assistant using MCP or pt. Start with a title, then add people, dates and details as you need them. For priorities and views across projects, see Task management.

Create tasks#

How do I add a task?#

Press +, Add task, at the top left of any screen. Choose the project, give the task a title, and add whatever else you know. Write a first message to the assignees if they need context: Create & Send posts it in the task's chat.

Shortcut: Cmd+Shift+A on a Mac, or Ctrl+Shift+A on Windows, opens the same form from anywhere.

On your phone, press + on the Tasks tab of the mobile app. Work can also arrive by email, from Slack or from a form; see Work arriving from elsewhere.

How do I add a task in a project?#

Press Add task at the top of the project for the full form, or type in the "Add a new task..." row in List view and press Enter. In the row, you can set the details as you type the title:

• @ assigns somebody.
• ! opens the priorities.
• [ adds a tag.
• !tomorrow, !fri or !12/15 sets the due date.

So Send the March report @Marie !fri gives Marie a task due Friday.

How do I add a task on Team?#

Type in the add-task row at the top of the list and choose the project. If you have filtered Team to somebody, the new task is assigned to them. Team has no Add task button; use the global + for the full form.

How do I create and manage tasks with AI?#

Connect an AI assistant and you can capture work from the conversation or terminal you are already in, without opening Projectous.

• MCP connects Claude, or any assistant that supports it, to your account. Ask it to "file a task in the Acme website project to fix the contact form, due Friday, for Marie", to find a task, or to tell you what changed on a project last week. It works as you and sees only what you can see. Set it up under Settings.
• pt is the Projectous command line, which Claude Code uses inside a code repository connected to a project. Ask Claude Code to file the bug it just found, move a task to In Progress, assign it, or post a comment when the fix is in. Connect a repository from the project's Integrations tab; see Projects.

Through MCP an assistant can find, read and create tasks. Changing a task's status, people or comments needs pt.

Edit tasks#

How do I change a task's title or dates?#

Open the task. Click the title to edit it; it saves when you click away. Press the calendar, Set due date, to choose a due date, and the × beside it to clear one. When you plan to work on it is set on the Planner; see How do I put a task aside until later?

How do I set a priority?#

Open the priority menu on the task, in the open task or on its row. Each priority shows a line saying what it is for, so your team uses them the same way. Choosing Urgent with no due date suggests one two days out, which you can change.

How do I add details and files?#

Open the task and write in its description. For steps the same person ticks off, press Checklist in the description's toolbar. Each line becomes a step with a box, and ticking a box saves straight away. Checklists are in task descriptions only. Add files under Resources, and images straight into the description.

How do I add sub-tasks?#

Use sub-tasks for steps that need their own person, status or date. Open the task, type in Add SubTask under SubTasks, and press Enter. A sub-task is a task of its own, with its own status, people and chat, listed under its parent. A sub-task cannot have sub-tasks of its own. Sub-tasks do not appear in anybody's Planner. A copy of the task can take its sub-tasks with it, and a repeating task's next copy leaves them behind.

People#

The owner makes sure a task moves forward, assignees do the work, and followers hear how it goes. Why they are separate is on Task management.

I was assigned a sub-task. Where do I find it?#

You are told when you are assigned, by push or email as your Notifications settings allow. Find it under its parent in the project's list: expand the parent task to see its sub-tasks. Because sub-tasks stay out of the Planner, it will not show among your planned work. Admins see everybody's sub-tasks on Team when they filter by a person.

How do I set or change the owner?#

Open the task and click the first picture at the top, Owner, or Set owner when there is none, and choose somebody. It saves straight away. A new task is owned by whoever you choose, otherwise the project's default task owner, otherwise you.

Who can I assign a task to?#

Anybody in your company, anybody on that project, and the people of companies yours works with. Add them from the pictures at the top of the open task, after the owner. When you pick somebody who is not on the project, you choose whether to add them to the project or give them only this task.

How do I add a follower?#

Followers are listed under Following in the open task, once it is saved.

• For a teammate, press + and choose them. They hear about the task's messages and status changes, as their Notifications settings allow, and can open it.
• For somebody outside the company, press Email and type their address. They get one email saying they will hear about the task, then one email each time its status changes. They need no account, cannot open the task, and never see its chat.
• Mentioning somebody with @ in the task's chat also makes them a follower.

An address that belongs to somebody your company works with is added as that person, not as an email. The owner and assignees already hear about the task, so they cannot also be added as followers.

How do I stop somebody following?#

Click a teammate's picture under Following. Email followers are grouped under one envelope with a count: open it and press × beside an address. An email follower can also stop it themselves from the link in any of those emails, Stop sending status updates about this task.

Status and completion#

How do I change a task's status?#

Open the task's status menu, on its row or at the top of the open task. The menu shows the project's statuses in four columns, Planning, Active, Review and Done, and marks the suggested next step with an arrow, so moving a task forward is one click. On the Project Board, you can also drag a card to another column. What the groups mean is on Task management. Every change is posted in the task's chat. Which statuses a project offers is set on Projects, and the statuses themselves under Settings.

How do I complete a task?#

Choose Completed from its status menu. If somebody should check the work first, choose a status in Review instead. Choosing Turned In also sends its owner a private message in the task's chat saying it was turned in. A repeating task makes its next copy when it is completed; see How do I make a task repeat?

Where did my completed task go?#

A task in a Done status leaves the project's list. Press Done, beside List view and Board view, to see finished work, with a tab for each finished status and Deleted last. Search leaves out finished tasks except those finished in the last seven days; switch on Include done in search to find older ones.

How do I find any task?#

Press Cmd+K on a Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows and type part of its title. See Search.

How do I reopen a task?#

Find it under Done and choose an Active status, such as In Progress, from its status menu. It is back in the project's list and in the Planner of the people on it.

Update tasks in bulk#

When work changes, you can adjust many tasks at once without opening each one: hand someone's work to a colleague, raise the priority of a client's tasks, or move a batch to another project.

Where can I update tasks in bulk?#

On a project's List view or Done view, and on Team. It is not on the Project Board. Press Bulk Edit above the list, then choose the tasks:

• Tick a task to select it. On a project, drag down the ticks to select a run of tasks.
• Press Select All to select every task in the list, and Deselect All to clear.
• Filter the list first, such as by a person's picture on Team or by status or tag on a project, so Select All picks only the tasks you mean.

The changes appear above the list once a task is selected. Each one saves as you choose it. Press Bulk Edit again when you are done.

How do I change who is responsible?#

Use Change owner... to give every selected task a new owner. Use the add person button to assign somebody to all of them, and the remove person button to take somebody off.

How do I reprioritize or update progress?#

Use Select priority... to set one priority on every selected task, and Select Status to move them all to one status. You can also star the selected tasks for today, or unstar them.

How do I reorganize work?#

Use Select project to move to move the selected tasks to another project. You choose which of their tags to take along. On a project, use Assign to contract... to put the selected tasks under one of its contracts, or No contract to take them off one. Contracts are not offered on Team.

An example: covering for somebody who is away#

Sam is away for two weeks, and Priya is covering. An admin opens Team, clicks Sam's picture to see only Sam's open tasks, presses Bulk Edit and Select All. The add person button assigns Priya to all of them, and the remove person button takes Sam off. If Sam owned them, Change owner... makes Priya the owner too. When Sam is back, the same steps hand the work back.

Task templates and types#

Templates give you a reusable starting point for tasks you create often. Task types give different kinds of work their own fields. Setup and examples are on Task types and task templates.

Repeating tasks#

How do I make a task repeat?#

Open the task and set Recurrence:

• After completion makes the next task a set number of days, weeks, months or years after this one is completed.
• Fixed schedule follows the calendar whether or not the last one is done, such as the first of each month, a set number of days before the month ends, or every Monday.

Choose None to stop the series. What the next task keeps, and its dates, are on Copying a task.

Move, copy and delete#

How do I move a task to another project?#

Change the project at the top of the open task. Time tracked on it moves too, unless it has been reviewed or invoiced: that time stays billed to the old project. For its tags, see Tags.

How do I copy a task?#

Press Clone task in the open task and tick the projects the copy goes to. The copy starts with no tracked time; the timers stay with the original. What else a copy keeps is on Copying a task.

How do I delete a task?#

Press Delete task at the top of the open task and confirm. It is deleted for everyone, and anybody who can open the task can delete it. A deleted task is still listed under Done, on the Deleted tab, but it cannot be restored, so the dialog says it can't be undone. Time tracked on it is not deleted with it. To keep a task you no longer need, choose a Done status such as Closed instead.

Tips#

• See every shortcut with Cmd+/ on a Mac or Ctrl+/ on Windows.