Creating and managing tasks

The unit of work

Everything in ProMan hangs off a task. Projects are containers; tasks are where time is logged, work is submitted, and approvals happen.

Creating a task

On any project page, press N to open the task drawer, or click New task in the header. The minimum a task needs is a title. Everything else is optional.

Fields you’ll use most:

• Title — one sentence, action-oriented. "Implement login with 2FA" is better than "Login".
• Description — Markdown supported. Paste images, link to design files, whatever.
• Assignee — one responsible person. Additional collaborators can be added via RACI (see chapter 8).
• Status — Not started, In progress, Blocked, In review, Done.
• Priority — Low, Medium, High, Critical.
• Due date — when this task is expected to be done.
• Estimate — hours of effort. Used by the Gantt view and workload reports.

Natural-language task creation

On Plus and above you can hit Cmd+K and type a sentence like "Review vendor quotes for HVAC by next Friday and assign to Dana". The AI parses the sentence, fills in title, assignee, due date, and creates the task in one shot. It’s genuinely faster than filling out a form once you get the hang of it.

Board, list, Gantt

Every project has three views on its tasks:

• Board — kanban columns by status. Drag to move.
• List — flat table. Sort, filter, inline-edit. Best for bulk updates.
• Gantt — timeline with dependencies. See chapter 6 for more on this.

Switch views at the top of the project page. Your choice is remembered per project, per user.

Dependencies

On any task, open the Dependencies tab in the drawer. Add upstream tasks ("this can’t start until X is done") or downstream tasks ("Y is blocked on this"). Dependencies show up on the Gantt as arrows, and ProMan will flag circular dependencies before you save them.

Subtasks

For bigger work, break it down. Any task can have subtasks. The parent task’s progress is computed from its subtasks (percentage of subtasks completed). On the board, subtasks show as a small checklist under the parent card.

Custom fields (Pro and above)

If your team tracks something ProMan doesn’t know about — vendor ID, PO number, safety classification — go to Settings → Organization → Custom fields. Define the field (text, number, select, or date), scope it to specific projects if you like, and it appears on the task drawer and list view.

Bulk actions

In the list view, check multiple tasks and a bulk-action bar appears at the bottom: change status, change assignee, add tag, archive. Useful for end-of-week cleanup.

Keyboard shortcuts worth learning

• Cmd/Ctrl + K — quick create or command palette
• N — new task on the current project
• E — edit selected task
• A — assign to me
• ? — show all shortcuts

Next up

Tasks are where time gets spent. Next chapter: logging it.