Projects

A project holds everything you do for one piece of work: its tasks, grouped in sections, the hours logged on it and the people working on it. Each project has a status, so the dashboard can tell you what is running, what is waiting and what is ready to invoice.

To create one, click the + next to Projects in the sidebar and choose New project. See Getting started for the first steps.

Find your way in a project#

At the top of a project you see its name, its status and, when there are tasks, how far along it is. The bar next to it holds the pages of the project:

Button	What it opens	Who sees it
Tasks	The sections and tasks	everyone on the project
Hours	The time logged on the project	owner, manager and team member
Code	The commits and error reports linked to the project	owner, manager and team member, when a repository or Sentry project is linked
the gear icon	The project settings	owner only

Log time starts a timer on the project itself, without a task. See Time and invoicing. For the code page, see GitHub.

Organise tasks in sections#

Every project starts with one section called Tasks. Add more with Add section at the bottom of the list, for example one per phase or per part of the job. Drag a section by its header to change the order.

The ... menu on a section header holds:

Menu item	What it does
Rename	Changes the name of the section.
Share...	Gives restricted members access to this section. Owner only. See Members and roles.
Complete all tasks	Marks every open task in the section as completed. Recurring tasks are skipped.
Reopen all tasks	Marks every completed task in the section as open again.
Archive completed tasks	Puts the finished tasks away, so they stop counting toward progress.
Archive section	Puts the whole section away, see below.
Delete	Deletes the section. Its tasks move to the first section that is not archived.

Sections, like labels, are managed by the owner, managers and team members.

Archive a section#

Archiving a section takes it and all of its tasks, open and completed, out of every list and every count until you bring it back. It is a way to tidy up a part of the project that is done without deleting anything.

• Turn on Archived in the bar above the tasks to see archived sections again.
• An archived section is read only. Open its ... menu and choose Unarchive section to bring it back, with its tasks.
• You can still delete an archived section.

You can archive every section of a project, but then no new tasks can be added until you bring one back or add a new one. Deleting a section always needs another section that is not archived, because its tasks have to go somewhere.

Choose a view#

The switch above the tasks shows the project as a List, a Board or a Timeline.

View	What you get
List	Sections under each other, which you can fold open and closed. Drag tasks to reorder them or to move them to another section.
Board	One column per section. Drag cards between columns, or drag a column to move the section.
Timeline	Every task on a time axis, as a bar from its start date to its due date. See Timeline.

The timeline of a project is available when the owner of the project has a paid plan. Without it the button stays visible, and clicking it tells you what it would bring.

The view you pick is remembered per project, for you only. For a project where you never picked one, the Default view in the project settings decides, and otherwise the Default project view in your own profile.

Show completed and archived tasks#

Completed and Archived in the bar above the tasks show the tasks that are hidden by default. Both are remembered per project, for you only. See Tasks.

Set the project status#

The owner changes the status by clicking the status next to the project name, from the status on the dashboard, or in the project settings.

Status	Meant for
Draft	A project that has not started yet.
Active	Work in progress. New projects start here.
On hold	Paused for now.
Waiting on client	The next step is the client's.
Maintenance	Finished, with occasional work afterwards.
To invoice	The work is done and has to be invoiced.
Invoiced	The invoice has been sent.
Completed	Finished. The project becomes read only.
Archived	Put away. The project becomes read only and leaves the sidebar.

The status also feeds the attention meter on the dashboard: an active project that stays quiet for two weeks asks for attention, and a project that is On hold, Waiting on client or Invoiced counts for half. See Getting started.

Close a project#

Completed and Archived close a project. A closed project is read only:

• no tasks, sections, labels, hours or members can be added or changed
• everyone can still read it and comment on tasks
• the owner can still mark hours that are already there as invoiced
• the project settings stay open, so the owner can reopen it

Completed projects are hidden from the dashboard until you turn on Completed there. Archived projects are hidden from the dashboard in the same way, and also from the sidebar, from Today, Upcoming and My tasks. The Archive button in the project settings archives a project in one click.

A closed project no longer counts toward the running projects and people of your plan. That is also why reopening it is checked: to reopen, set the status back to an open one, and Taskstand checks whether the project and everyone in it still fit your plan. If they do not, the message says what you can do. See Plans and limits.

Arrange projects in folders#

Folders only exist in your own sidebar. Nobody else sees them, and a folder you make never changes anything for the other people on a project.

• Click the + next to Projects and choose New folder.
• Drag a project onto a folder to put it inside, or drag it up and down to change the order.
• Drag a folder onto another folder to nest it. Drag it onto Projects to bring it back to the top level.
• The arrow in front of a folder folds it open or closed. Clicking the name opens the dashboard with only the projects in that folder.
• The ... menu of a folder holds Rename and Delete. Deleting a folder never deletes projects: its projects and subfolders move up one level.

You can also pick a folder when you create a project.

Use the task key#

Every task has a short reference made of the project's task key and a number, such as WEB-12. You can say it out loud, paste it in a chat, type it in search, or write it in a commit message so the commit is linked to the task (see GitHub). The number counts per project.

The key is made from the project name when the project is created:

• a name of several words gives their first letters: "Hotel Van Campen" becomes HVC
• a single word gives its first three letters: "Webshop" becomes WEB
• numbers in the name are skipped, because a key is letters only
• if the owner already uses the key in another of their projects, a letter is added: WEB, WEBB, WEBC

Renaming the project leaves the key as it is. The owner can change it under Task key in the project settings, with up to 16 letters. Older references, for example in commit messages written before the change, then no longer match. If you also work on a project of someone else that uses the same key, the settings warn you, since tasks in both will read the same.

Turn on Show task numbers in lists to show the reference in front of every task title, for everyone on the project.

Change the project settings#

Only the owner opens the project settings, with the gear icon in the bar. They have four pages: General, Members, Code and Labels.

On General you set the name and colour, the task key, the client, a description, the status, a deadline and the default view. On a plan with rates and invoicing you also set the hourly rate, the currency and a budget, either in hours or as an agreed price (see Time and invoicing). Click Save to keep your changes.

Members is where you invite people and hand the project over, see Members and roles. Labels is where you manage the labels of the project, see Tasks.

Delete a project#

In the project settings, click Delete and type the name of the project to confirm. The project and all of its tasks are deleted, running timers on it are stopped and open invitations are withdrawn. Only the owner can do this, and it cannot be undone from the app. If you only want the project out of the way, archive it instead.

Leave a project#

Anyone but the owner can leave a project, also a closed one: open the ... menu in the bar and choose Leave project. You lose access to its tasks, tasks assigned to you are left to nobody, and the hours you logged stay on the project. The owner cannot leave, but can first hand the project over to someone else. See Members and roles.