Tasks
Work in a project with an owner and a duration, scheduled on the critical path.
A task is work in a project that takes time, such as "Sign the lease". You give it an owner and a duration, and Continual schedules it.
How it works
You give each task:
- An Owner, a person or Continual.
- A Kind: Work takes its owner's time; a Wait is time that must pass while nobody works, such as a permit review; a Milestone takes no time and marks a date others rely on.
- A Duration in working days, Monday to Friday. A milestone's duration is 0.
- Optionally, a Start no earlier than date and a Due date.
A task moves from Backlog or Planned to In progress and Done, or is Canceled. You decide when it is done, using its completion criteria, comments, and attachments. Each task gets a number, such as TASK-21. Move to moves a task to another project and keeps its number and dependencies.
A task is planned work, not a to-do: it does not appear in anyone's Up next. When a task needs a person, a to-do about it asks them.
Follow the schedule
You never enter a task's scheduled dates. Continual computes them from its duration, what it waits for, and its fixed dates, and the task's Schedule section shows them:
- Scheduled start, Scheduled finish, Late start, Late finish, and Slack. A task with no slack is Critical.
- Actual start and Actual finish, from the day it went in progress and the day it was done.
Backlog and canceled tasks are not scheduled. If dependencies form a loop, the tasks in it get no dates. A dependency on a task in another project blocks the task but does not move its dates yet.
The tasks list has views for this: Critical path lists the unfinished tasks with no slack, Schedule is a timeline of scheduled dates, and Board groups tasks by status.
Ready and Blocked
Continual also marks each unfinished task:
- Ready when it has an owner and completion criteria.
- Blocked while a task it waits for has not finished, or, for a start-to-start dependency, not started.
Object: changes freely, and its history keeps the old values.
Status
- Backlog
- Planned
- In progress
- Done
- Canceled
Fields
- Project
- Link to a project
- NumberSet by Continual
- Number, such as TASK-12
- Title
- Text
- Description
Context, instructions, and the intended outcome.
- Formatted text
- Completion criteria
The observable result and evidence needed to accept this work.
- Formatted text
- Priority
- Low, Normal, High, Urgent
- Kind
Work takes its owner's time; a wait is time that must pass while nobody works, such as a permit review or a delivery's lead time; a milestone takes no time and marks a date others rely on.
- Work, Wait, Milestone
- Duration
Working days it takes, Monday to Friday. A milestone takes none.
- Number
- Start no earlier than
A fixed day it cannot start before, such as when a delivery arrives. Leave it empty when what it waits for decides.
- Date
- Due date
The day it must finish by. A task scheduled to finish later has negative slack.
- Date
- Attachments
- List of group of values
- Owner
Who answers for it and reports its progress.
- Link to a member or service account
- Related to
- Links to records
- Scheduled startSet by Continual
The earliest day it can start, from what it waits for. For a task already started, the day it started.
- Date
- Scheduled finishSet by Continual
The day it is scheduled to finish, from its start and duration.
- Date
- Late startSet by Continual
The last day it can start without moving the project's finish or a due date.
- Date
- Late finishSet by Continual
The last day it can finish without moving the project's finish or a due date.
- Date
- SlackSet by Continual
Working days it can slip before it moves the project's finish or a due date. Negative when it is already late.
- Number
- CriticalSet by Continual
On the critical path: it has no slack, so any slip moves the finish.
- Yes or no
- Actual startSet by Continual
The day it went in progress, from its history.
- Date
- Actual finishSet by Continual
The day it was done, from its history.
- Date
- MarksSet by Continual
Continual keeps these current, each with the reason it holds.
- Ready, Blocked
Actions
- Move to. Moves the task, with its comments and to-dos, to another project. Whoever reaches that project reaches it; its number stays.