Anyone can create a task for themselves — the New Task button is on everyone's list. Assigning a task to someone else, or sending it to a team or department, needs the Create tasks permission (the Task Manager role grants it too).
Open Tasks & Projects → My Tasks → New Task.
The New task dialog
The dialog captures just enough to open the task:
- Title — the ask, in plain words. This is what people see first.
- Priority — Low / Normal / High / Urgent.
- Assign to — A person or A team (see below). Without the Create tasks permission this field simply reads "This task will be assigned to you."
Press Create draft. The task is created as a Draft and opens straight away.
Finish the draft on the task page
Everything else is set on the task itself, while it is still a Draft:
- Description — rich text on the Overview tab: steps, context, links, pasted images.
- Target (minutes) (optional) — the expected effort, on the right-hand rail. Setting it turns the task into a KPI sample (see Task KPI and grading: how it works and the fairness rules).
- Output required (optional) — when on, the task cannot be finished until the assignee records an output.
- Output form (optional) — a structured form the assignee fills in instead of free text (see Task output forms: collect structured data).
- Due date and Content files — a deadline, and any reference material for the ask.
Publish it
A Draft is owner-only. The assignee cannot see it, is not subscribed to its chat, and cannot start it. When the brief is ready, press Publish. The task moves to Ready to start, the assignee is subscribed and notified, and the description and form are frozen. Use Return to draft if you need to edit the brief again.
A task you create for yourself skips this step — it is created already published, because there is nobody to hide the draft from.
Assign to a person or a team
- A person — the picker offers people in your department and the teams you manage (the org chart). With Assign-to-anyone (or Task Manager) you can pick anyone.
- A team — send the task to a department instead of a person. The departments you manage come first, then every other department. It starts unclaimed. The team sees it only once it is published.
- Your own department or a team you manage: everyone in it gets one message with a link, and any member claims it. Use this when "someone on the crew" should pick it up.
- Any other department: only its manager, its supervisors and today's stand-in are told. The manager gives it to one of their people (see below).
A task on a project milestone that has not started is held until the milestone starts (see Milestones or tasks? Planning a project).
Don't know who? Send it to the department
Example. Lerato in Sales needs a technician to check a customer's site logs, but she doesn't know who in Technical Services should do it. She chooses A team → Dept: Technical Services and publishes the task. The manager of Technical Services is told, presses Assign on the task and gives it to Sipho. Sipho does the work, and Lerato checks or grades it: she is still the task's manager.
The manager who handed it out is not added to the task, so you don't need to assign it to a director and wait for them to pass it on. The whole flow, with the manager's side and what happens when nobody picks it up, is in Send a task to a department: when you don't know who should do it.
Dependent vs independent sub-tasks
By default a task's sub-tasks are Dependent — the parent waits for them before it completes, and their grades roll up. Switch it with (make independent) on the task's rail if the sub-tasks are just informational.
After it is published
The task has its own chat channel; the assignee and you (as manager) are subscribed. You can tweak priority, target, output-required and the assignee inline on the task's right-hand rail at any time while it is open.
Related: Send a task to a department · Sub-tasks & delegation: how work rolls up the tree · Reviewing work: rate, request changes and the 48-hour window · Task KPI and grading: how it works and the fairness rules.