Product Guide

Tasks

Understand how to create, manage, and track work items using Tasks in FortyOne.

Your Core Work Items

Overview of Tasks in FortyOne

Tasks are the building blocks of your projects in FortyOne. They represent individual tasks, issues, bugs, or any piece of work that needs to be tracked and completed. Think of them as the actionable items that move your projects forward, helping you and your team stay organized and focused.

With Tasks, you can:

  • Clearly define work: Break down larger objectives into manageable tasks with rich text descriptions.
  • Track progress: Monitor the status of each work item as it moves through your workflow.
  • Assign ownership: Ensure every task has a responsible team member (Assignee) and know who reported it (Reporter).
  • Set priorities and timelines: Manage urgency with Priority levels (No Priority, Low, Medium, High, Urgent) and keep track of Start and Due Dates.
  • Organize and categorize: Use Labels for flexible tagging and categorization.
  • Collaborate effectively: Discuss details, ask questions, and share updates via Comments in the Activity Feed.
  • Link related items: Connect Tasks to Objectives, Sprints, external Links, and break them down further with Sub-Tasks.
  • Include all necessary context: Add Attachments directly to a task.

Creating a Task

Getting a new task into FortyOne is straightforward. FortyOne offers multiple ways to create a Task, ensuring you can capture work whenever and however it arises:

  • Global Shortcut: Press Shift + N from anywhere in the application to quickly open the new task dialog.
  • Header Button: Click the prominent New task button, usually found in the main header of the application.
  • Sidebar Button: Use the Create task button located in the main navigation sidebar.
  • Command Menu: Open the command menu with Cmd + K (or Ctrl + K on Windows/Linux), then type "new task", "create task", or simply "task" and select the create action.
  • From the "My Work" view: Quickly add tasks to your personal backlog.
  • Within a Project or specific views: Add tasks directly to a specific project or context, ensuring they are automatically associated.

Screenshot of the New Task dialog

When the New task dialog opens (often titled with your current team prefix, e.g., ENG):

Enter title: Provide a clear and concise summary for the task.

Task description: Add more details, context, or acceptance criteria.

Optionally, set initial properties like Status, Priority, Start date, Deadline, Assignee, Objective

If you need to create multiple tasks consecutively, enable the "Create more" toggle.

Click the Create task button.

Viewing and Managing Task Details

Clicking on any task in a list or board view will open its detailed view. This view typically comprises a main content area on the left and a Properties Panel on the right.

Screenshot of the full Task Detail View

Main Details Area

This area usually displays the following sections:

SectionDescription
Title & DescriptionDirectly modify the core information of the task. Editable rich text fields.
Sub-TasksView, add (Add Sub Issue - label may vary), or manage nested tasks that break down the main task.
LinksAdd, view, and manage relevant URLs or connections to other resources.
AttachmentsUpload (drag 'n' drop or click to select), view, and manage files associated with the task.
Activity feedShows a chronological log of all changes and discussions. Contains a Comments Tab and an Updates Tab.

Properties Panel

This panel on the right allows you to view and modify key properties of the task:

PropertyDescriptionShortcut
ReporterShows who originally created the task.
StatusChange the task's current stage in the workflow (e.g., "Backlog").S
PriorityAdjust the task's urgency (e.g., "No Priority", "Low", "Medium", "High", "Urgent").P
AssigneeReassign the task to another team member.A
Start dateSet or update the task's start date.B
DeadlineSet or update the task's due date.D
ObjectiveLink or change the associated objective.O
SprintAssign the task to a different sprint.N
LabelsAdd or remove labels for categorization.L
  • At the bottom of this panel, you can often find actions like + Add link.
  • Other actions like Duplicate, Delete, etc., might also be found here or under a general options menu for the task.

Quick Edits from List and Kanban Views

Beyond the detailed task view, FortyOne allows you to make quick changes to certain task properties directly from your List and Kanban views. This is useful for rapidly updating items without needing to open each one individually.

Commonly editable properties from these views include:

  • Status: Often changed by dragging a task to a different column in Kanban view, or via a dropdown in List view.
  • Priority: Typically editable via a clickable icon or dropdown in both views.
  • Assignee: Quickly reassign tasks from the list or board.
  • Sprint & Objective: May also be editable directly from these views, depending on the view configuration.

Screenshot of List or Kanban quick edit

Keyboard Shortcuts

FortyOne aims to make you more efficient. Look out for keyboard shortcuts for common actions on tasks.

ShortcutAction
Shift + NCreate new task (Global)
SChange Status
PSet Priority
AAssign User
LAdd/Manage Labels
DSet Due Date
BSet Start Date
OLink Objective
NAssign to Sprint