Tasks FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Tasks.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Tasks Overview.
Setup
Do I need to configure anything before tasks start working?
Enable the Tasks app from Admin → Apps → All Apps — it is disabled by default and requires a licence. Once enabled, the defaults let managers and admins create, assign, and complete tasks immediately. Optional features — smart assignment, SMS alerts, daily digests, overdue escalation, and completion verification — are all off by default and must be turned on in the Tasks settings page. Recurring tasks need no setting: any task or template can be set to repeat.
Who can access which parts of Tasks?
There are four levels of access:
- Admins and super admins can do everything, including deleting tasks, managing templates, accessing analytics, importing tasks, and changing settings.
- Tasks app administrators (designated per user in Admin → Apps → All Apps) have the same capabilities as admins, including changing settings. An HR admin role on its own adds nothing in Tasks — HR admins get the access of their admin, manager, or employee role.
- Managers can create and assign tasks (when the Allow all managers to assign tasks setting is on, which it is by default), and can view team analytics for their locations and reporting line. Whether managers can author templates depends on the Who can create & edit task templates setting — the default is Administrators only.
- Employees can view and work on their own assigned tasks in the My Tasks view, create personal tasks (when Allow employees to self-assign tasks is on, which it is by default), and see their personal analytics. When Who can create tasks for other people is set to Everyone with access to Tasks, employees can also assign tasks to colleagues.
Permissions and access
Why can’t a manager assign tasks to other people?
The Allow all managers to assign tasks setting is on by default, but an admin may have turned it off. When off, only admins and Tasks app administrators can assign (unless Who can create tasks for other people is set to Everyone with access to Tasks), and a manager can’t cancel, reopen, or escalate a task they neither assigned nor are assigned to. Check the Tasks settings page under Permission Settings and re-enable it if needed. The manager is told that only administrators and Tasks app admins can assign tasks to other people here, and who can let managers assign.
Why can’t a manager create or edit templates?
Template management is controlled by the Who can create & edit task templates setting, which defaults to Administrators only. Change it to Managers and administrators in the Tasks settings page under Permission Settings to let managers author and edit templates.
Can employees create their own tasks?
Yes, when the Allow employees to self-assign tasks setting is on (the default). When off, employees can’t create tasks for themselves; they can still create tasks for colleagues if Who can create tasks for other people is set to Everyone with access to Tasks. Employees always see and work on tasks assigned to them, regardless of this setting.
Day-to-day
How do recurring tasks work?
Set a task’s or template’s recurrence to Daily (every few days, or weekdays only), Weekly (on chosen days, every few weeks), or Monthly (every few months, such as quarterly). A background job runs every 15 minutes, checks for recurring tasks whose next occurrence is due, and creates a new task instance from the parent — copying its fields and checklist items, for the same assignee while they are still active. Each repeat is due on a day the schedule names, counted on from the first task’s due date, and appears as far ahead of its due date as the first task was created ahead of its own. The Per Shift (no automatic repeat) option creates a single task; nothing re-creates it per shift. The original task stays open as the recurring parent; each generated instance is independent and tracks its own status.
How does smart assignment decide who gets the task?
When Enable smart task assignment is turned on in settings (off by default), a new task with no explicit assignee is routed to the person with the fewest open tasks (To Do, In Progress, or Overdue). If the task has a location, users who have been assigned tasks at that location are preferred. If you set a Maximum concurrent tasks per user cap (options: 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20), anyone at or above the cap is skipped. If no one has capacity, the task stays unassigned.
What can the AI Tasks agent do?
From Ask AI, in plain language, the agent can list your tasks (or, for a manager, the whole business’s or one named person’s) and the tasks you assigned to other people, find a task from a description of it, count tasks by status, priority, location, assignee or category, show a task’s full detail, list the task templates (managers), and create, assign, update, complete, decline, cancel, reopen and escalate tasks. Every answer links the task’s page.
A task you create for yourself is created at once. Every other change — a task created for someone else, an assignment, an edit, a status change, a completion, and declining, cancelling, reopening or escalating — shows what will change and waits for you to confirm. Reading needs no confirmation.
The agent follows the same permission rules as the Tasks pages: employees act only on their own tasks, assigning to others needs the manager/admin permission, and cancelling, reopening and escalating are for managers and Tasks administrators (an employee can still cancel their own task). Ask AI cannot delete tasks — see below. An admin can turn the agent off entirely from the Tasks Agent card in Tasks settings.
Can I delete a task?
Yes, if it is a to-do you created for yourself, or you are an administrator or Tasks app administrator. A task someone assigned — even one you assigned to someone else — can only be deleted by an administrator. Open the task and delete it, or delete several at once from My Tasks in the List view: tick the tasks and choose Delete (tasks someone else assigned to you are skipped). Administrators and Tasks app administrators can also switch the Manage board to Table, tick tasks, choose Delete Selected and click Apply. Deleting cannot be undone. If someone else gave you a task that isn’t yours, decline it instead — see the next question. Ask AI does not delete tasks.
How do I change a task’s due date without opening it?
On My Tasks, open the task’s ⋮ menu — in the List or the Kanban view — and under Move the due date to choose Tomorrow, This weekend or Next week, or choose Pick a date…, pick the day and click Move. To move several tasks at once, switch to the List view (or open Assigned by Me), tick the tasks, pick the new date in the bar at the top of the list and click Set due date; completed and cancelled tasks are skipped. Either way the task becomes due any time on that day, and it stays on your list.
Someone gave me a task that isn’t mine. How do I get it off my list?
Decline it. Open the task and choose Decline Task from the ⋮ menu (on a phone, tap Decline beside the task’s main action), or ask Ask AI to decline it. Say why — a reason is required, up to 500 characters, and the person the task goes to reads it. It goes to whoever answers for the work — the ticket’s handler, whoever raised the corrective action, or the form’s owner (a form task with no owner who can take it is closed as declined) — or else back to the person who assigned it, with your reason, and leaves your list; nothing is deleted. If no one is on record to hand it back to — nobody assigned it, or that person has left or can’t open Tasks — the task is closed as declined with your reason, and a Tasks manager can still find and reopen it.
Work that another app owns is handed off in that app instead: a contract obligation, Frontline Execution work, or an onboarding step that nobody else handed you. The task page says where, in place of Decline Task, and links there when you can open that page. A task you assigned to yourself can’t be declined — cancel or delete it instead.
Can I delegate a task to someone else?
Yes, if the admin has enabled the Allow task delegation setting (off by default) in the Permission Settings card. When enabled, an assignee can delegate their task to another team member from the task detail view. Completed and cancelled tasks cannot be delegated.
What happens when a task is escalated?
When a task is escalated it is flagged and the escalation reason is recorded. A manual escalation (or an assignee’s I’m blocked) notifies the assignee’s manager — or, when that is you, your own manager — or the person who assigned the task if no manager is set, by in-app notification and email — governed by Notify the escalation target when someone escalates a task. Automatic escalation is a separate setting: turn on Escalate overdue tasks to managers and choose how long a task must be overdue first (15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, 1 day, 2 days, or 3 days; default is 1 hour). It notifies the assignee’s manager and the managers at the task’s location, plus the group in Send escalations & verification requests to this group if one is picked. Every overdue task is escalated unless you also turn on Only escalate Critical-priority tasks.
When something looks wrong
“I completed the task but my manager says it is still awaiting verification”
If Enable manager verification is turned on in settings, completing a task triggers a verification request to the manager — the task shows as Completed, marked awaiting manager verification until the manager verifies it. This is distinct from the task status itself; check whether verification is enabled and whether the manager still has the verification request in their notifications.
“I can’t complete this checklist task — the button is greyed out”
A checklist task auto-completes only when every checklist item is checked off. If individual items require a photo or notes (set per item when the task or template was created), those must be provided before the item can be checked. Look at which items are still incomplete and whether they have a photo or notes requirement icon.
“My employee says they can’t see their tasks”
Three things to check: (1) the Tasks app must be enabled for your business; (2) if you use Access Management audience rules on the Tasks app, the employee must be in the included audience; (3) for personal task creation specifically, the Allow employees to self-assign tasks setting must be on.
“An overdue task didn’t trigger an SMS”
SMS alerts go only to the assignee of a Critical-priority task — when it is assigned to them and when it goes overdue (escalations are never texted) — and only when all of these are true: your business has SMS set up, Send SMS for critical tasks is turned on in Tasks settings (off by default), the assignee has a verified phone number on their profile, and they have not opted out of SMS for tasks in their notification preferences.
Templates and imports
How do industry starter templates work?
Go to Templates and choose Load Industry Defaults. Pick from 11 industries: Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Food & Beverage, Education, Technology, Finance, Transportation, Construction, and Professional Services. Each pack creates a set of ready-to-use templates with checklist items, priority levels, and recurrence patterns pre-filled. Existing templates with the same title and category are skipped — your customisations are never overwritten.
Can I import tasks in bulk?
Yes. The Import tab (visible to managers, admins, and Tasks app administrators) uses the Smart Import engine — upload a spreadsheet (Excel or CSV) or paste rows to create tasks in bulk. Each assignee gets one in-app notice listing the tasks imported for them (not one per task), while Send notifications when tasks are assigned is on in Tasks settings; due-date reminders and overdue notices follow your Tasks settings as usual.
Integrations
Can tasks be created automatically from a Forms submission?
Yes. A form template can include task rules that fire when a submission reaches a specified status (submitted, approved, or rejected). Rules can evaluate field values, submitter role, department, and location. The generated task’s title and description support field placeholders (e.g. {{field_name}}), and assignment can route to the submitter, their manager, the form owner, a department head, a location manager, a specific user, or a role-based pool. Both the Tasks app and the form’s Tasks integration toggle must be enabled.
How do AI Notepad meeting action items become tasks?
When a meeting is processed by AI Notepad, it extracts action items. If the Create tasks automation is enabled, each action item becomes a task — with the attendee matched to a business user as the assignee, the action text as the title, and any mentioned deadline as the due date. Duplicate tasks for the same meeting are prevented automatically.
Licensing and limits
Does Tasks require a licence?
Yes. Tasks requires a licence and is opt-in per tenant. An administrator enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps; it is disabled by default until then.
Are there limits I should know about?
| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Task title | 255 characters |
| Category name | 100 characters |
| Document attachment size | 10 MB per file |
| Allowed document formats | PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, plain text, CSV, and images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP) |
| Comment length | 5,000 characters |
| Escalation reason | 500 characters |
| Decline reason | 500 characters |
| Concurrent task cap per user | No limit, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20 (admin-configurable) |
| Auto-archive window | 7, 14, 30, 60, or 90 days after completion (default 30) |
| Due-date reminder lead time | 1, 2, 4, 8, 24, or 48 hours before due (default 2) |
| Digest delivery time | 6:00 AM, 8:00 AM, 9:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 5:00 PM, or 6:00 PM in your organization’s time zone, or UTC if none is set (default 8:00 AM) |
More help
- Tasks Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Tasks questions from these articles.