Projects, views, and planning

This guide shows you how to organise team work into projects and how to use each view to see what's happening. It's for team leads and anyone who manages shared work.

Before you begin

• You need permission to create tasks to create projects. You need edit access to change a project's settings.
• Timeline and project automation rules are included with paid plans.
• Several tools, including Overview, + Add section, Fields, Settings, and Automations, only appear after you select a project.

Create a project

1. Open Tasks → Projects and choose New project.
2. Enter a Project name and choose Create.
3. Spacebrain opens the project's Overview. Open Settings to add a Description that explains what success looks like, then choose Save project.

What you should see: the project appears on the Projects tab and in the Projects list in the Tasks menu.

Add sections and status columns

Projects have two ways to organise tasks. Use them for different things:

• Sections group tasks by phase, workstream, or client. Add one with + Add section and a Section name.
• Status columns show where work stands on the Kanban board. Add one with + Add column (in Kanban view), give it a Column name, and choose a Completion category: To Do, In Progress, or Completed. The category controls what counts as finished in reports.

Example: a website project could have sections "Design", "Build", and "Launch", and columns "Backlog", "Doing", "Client review", and "Done" (with "Done" in the Completed category).

Don't use both to mean the same thing. If "Client review" is a column, don't also make it a section.

To rename, reorder, or delete sections and columns, open Settings. Each list has move up, move down, and delete controls.

Add custom fields and labels

Use custom fields for information you want to filter or sort by.

1. Select the project and choose Fields.
2. Under New field, enter a Field name and choose a Field type: Text, Number, Date, Single select, or Multi-select.
3. For select types, enter the Options, separated by commas.
4. Choose Add field.

Every task in the project now shows the field on its Details tab.

Labels are lighter tags that work across projects. Pick them from Labels in a task. Agree what each label means so your team doesn't end up with "Urgent", "High", and "ASAP" all meaning the same thing.

Read the project overview

Select a project and open Overview to see:

• Active tasks, Overdue, Due this week, and Milestones.
• Progress: how many tasks are completed.
• Status health: how tasks are spread across your status columns.
• Upcoming work: the next active tasks by due date.
• Team workload: active tasks per assignee.

Use Add milestone or New task here to add work without leaving the page.

Find tasks with filters, grouping, and sorting

Every list view has the same toolbar:

• Search tasks looks through titles.
• Filters lets you filter by project, section, label, custom field, and due date (Any date or Overdue). You can also add detailed conditions such as "Priority is High" or "Due date before Friday".
• Group by Status, Project, Section, Assignee, or Priority.
• Sort by Due date, Priority, Task name, Status, Manual order, Created, or Updated.

Filters are saved in the page address, so you can copy the link and share exactly what you see.

Save a view

A saved view remembers your filters, sort, grouping, and view type.

1. Set up the filters and layout you want.
2. Choose Save view.
3. Enter a View name. Optionally tick Make this the default view.
4. Choose Save.

Pick it again from the saved view menu. When a view is selected, you can rename it, make it the default (star), or delete it. Name views after the question they answer, for example "Overdue client work – this week".

Choose the right view

On Kanban, use + on a column to quick-add a task, and collapse columns you don't need. If someone else changes the board while you drag, you see This board changed while you were moving a task. It has been refreshed. Check the card and try again.

On Timeline, add a start or due date to see a task. Use the calendar icon on a row to open Shift task schedule, enter a number of Days (negative moves it earlier), and leave Move downstream dependent tasks too ticked if the tasks that depend on it should move as well. Choose Shift schedule.

Change many tasks at once

1. In List, hold ⌘ (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and click rows to select them, or Shift-click to select a range. In Kanban, tick each card.
2. Use the bar that appears: Complete, Archive, Priority…, Status…, Assignee…, Project…, or Delete. On My tasks, Add to Today adds the tasks to today's daily plan without changing their deadlines.
3. Check the count, then apply.

Deleting from the bar asks you to confirm and can't be undone.

Use the Planning center

Choose Planning at the top of Tasks for a wider view:

• Dashboard: active work, planned effort, overdue and blocked tasks.
• Workload: how busy each person is, based on Effort (hours) and their Weekly hours.
• Portfolios: group related projects and track them together.
• Goals: set a goal with a status of On track, At risk, Off track, or Achieved.
• Schedule: the critical path and milestones for the selected project. Save a baseline, such as "Approved launch plan", to compare later.

Archive a finished project

Open Settings and choose Archive project. Its tasks stay available in All tasks. Archive finished projects so active views stay short.

If something goes wrong

• Fields, Settings, or Automations are missing. Select a project first.
• I can't drag cards on Kanban. Switch to the All tab.
• Timeline shows an upgrade message. Timeline is included with paid plans.
• A task isn't on Calendar. Give it a due date.
• A shared view looks different for a teammate. Views filtered to "me" show each person their own tasks.

FAQ

What's the difference between a section and a status column?

A section says what part of the project a task belongs to. A status column says how far along it is.

Can I automate a project?

Yes. Rules and request forms are covered in project automations and request forms.

Next step

Plan your own day in daily planning.