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Task Status Sets [Early Access]

By Jennifer Goodsell | Updated

 

Overview

Note: An Account Administrator can activate Task Status Sets on the Early Access page under Settings > Early Access.

Task Status Sets and Custom Task Statuses give you more versatility and consistency when it comes to prioritizing and managing all your project tasks across your account.

Each status set contains the four standard task statuses (Not Started, Started, Needs Info, and Completed) as well as any custom task statuses you’ve added to it. All additional custom statuses you add are organized by status type.

Note: When enabled, all Insights reports that include task status information will automatically include the status type of the current status for the task. To display a custom task status name in your reports, you can either replace that attribute with the Task: Status attribute or add it alongside the Task: Status Type attribute.

Task status set.png

You can create up to 50 status sets for your account, meaning you can diversify which task statuses are available for your account members to utilize depending on the project needs. For example, you can use the default task status set for Project A and then create a new task status set for Project B, keeping the statuses separate per project.

Note: A maximum amount of 20 custom task statuses is allowed per set.

Upcoming Releases

Throughout the Early Access period, additional features will be added to support custom task statuses and Task Status Sets. The following enhancements will be available before general release (outside of the standard monthly release):

  • Custom task statuses will be available in:
    • Task status change notifications
    • Task Tracker Filters modal
    • Task Tracker exports
    • Global Tasks
    • Data Exporter
    • Task History, Project History, and Recent History
    • Local Gantt
  • Task Status Sets information will be available in:
    • Data Exporter

As the items above release, they will be removed from this list and added to the weekly Additional Enhancements in the Release Notes.

Task Status Sets Page

Note: Once activated, you can access the Task Status Sets page under Settings > Task Status Sets.

On the Task Status Sets page, you can view the current status sets and their custom statuses for your account and perform the following actions:

  • Add a status set
  • Add a custom task status
  • Set a status set as the account default
  • Rename or delete a set or individual status
  • Reorder statuses within a status type

Task Status Sets page.png

Note: Account members must be added to the Task Status Set access group set in order to create/edit new task status sets and custom statuses and select a task status set for a project. For more information, see the Access Groups Set: Account Settings article.

A status set that is marked as the account default—meaning it is selected by default in all new projects—or is currently being used in a project will be tagged accordingly, giving you a quick snapshot of how your current sets are being utilized. 

Set tags.png

Task Status Types

Each task status—both default and custom statuses—is organized by status type and the associated type color. The four default status types and their colors are:

  • Not Started (Gray)
  • Started (Green)
  • Needs Info (Red)
  • Completed (Blue)

For example, if you add a custom status labeled Pending and assign it the Needs Info status type, the new status will appear under the Needs Info default status with a matching red font.

New status by type.png

Note: You cannot edit a custom status’s type once it’s been assigned. If you need to change the type, you will need to delete the status and create a new one with the correct type.

You can quickly reorder statuses within their set type in Project Settings clicking and holding the Reorder icon to the left of the status and then dragging it to the new position in the set.

When you create a task hierarchy that has a parent task and subtasks, the status type of the subtasks will automatically roll up to the parent task. This helps save you and your team time so you don’t have to manually update the parent task status each time to match the hierarchy. 

How the subtasks’ statuses roll up depends on which status types they have. In the example below, you’ll see that the subtasks have various custom statuses that are in the Completed default type group, so the parent task’s status type automatically updates to Completed.

Completed status type.png

When there’s a combination of statuses—or the subtask statuses are all assigned the Needs Info type—the parent task status type will be Started.

Task hierarchy .png

Note: The statuses for the Issue task type do not automatically appear in the Account Default task status set. You can add these statuses by clicking the Add icon to the right of each status type you want to add one to. 
Note: Currently task status sets are not available to use in the Gantt chart. If you assign a custom task status in the Task Tracker or Task Details side panel, it will appear as the status’s default status type in the Gantt chart.

How to Add a Task Status Set

  1. Hover over Settings in the left navigation and select Task Status Sets under the Customizations section. 
  2. On the Task Status Sets page, click the Create Task Status Set button at the top of the page.
  3. Enter the status set Name in the Create Task Status Set modal that appears.
    Create Task Status Set modal.png
  4. Click Save. The new status set appears on the page.

How to Add a Custom Task Status

  1. Hover over Settings in the left navigation and select Task Status Sets under the Customizations section. The Task Status Sets page opens.
  2. In the desired status set, select the Add icon in-line with the status type you want to add the status to.
    Add task status button.png
  3. In the Add Task Status modal that appears, enter the Name and then click Save. The new custom task status appears in the set.
    Add Task Status modal.png

How to Assign a Status Set to an Existing Project

  1. Click Projects in the left navigation and then select your project on the Projects page.
  2. In the project workspace, click the Actions icon next to the project name and then select Settings.
    Settings drop-down.png
  3. In the General section, click the Task Status Sets drop-down and select the set you want to use for this project.
    Select a task status set in project.png
    Note: If the Task Status Sets field is not editable, you either do not have the appropriate access group set permission level or there is a task(s) that is already assigned a status from the current set and must be reassigned to a default status (Not Started, Started, Needs Info, and Completed) before the status set can be updated.
  4. Click Update Project in the top-right corner of the page. The task status set is applied and the set’s statuses are now available to select in the project.

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