A Complete Guide to Creating Projects, Task Groups, and Tasks

Creating a New Project

Understanding your Project Interface

Creating Task Groups

Adding Tasks to Your Task Groups

Detailed Task Management

Enhancing Task Details

Task Actions

Shifting Due Dates

Cleaning up the plan/archiving completed tasks and completed groups

Creating a New Project

1. Go to the Project List: On the Coordinate dashboard, navigate to the project list.
   
   

   

   
   
   
2. Add a New Project: Here, find and click the 'add a new project' button.
   
   
3. Name Your Project: Enter a suitable name for the project, for example, 'My First Client Project.' Once named, your project is ready, and you'll be taken to an empty project page.
   
   

   

Understanding Your Project Interface

The project page is divided into three main sections:

1. Left Side - Task and Task Group Area: This is where you'll input tasks and task groups.
   
   

   

      
2. Right Side - Project Goals, Summary, Action Links 
   
   

   

   
   
   1. The Project Goals area is reserved for specifying the goals of the project. You can use these as milestones to let your clients know of the status of the plan.
      
      
   2. Use the Summary to add quick links, important or general info about your Project, add a video, and many other things.
      
      
   3. Use Action Links to create questionnaires for your clients.
      
      
3. Collaborator Section: Here, you can invite collaborators like clients, other team members, or third parties.
   
   

   

        
4. Expand/Collapse the plan. There are 2 arrows above the left and right sections of the plan. Clicking the arrow next to Edit Plan will expand/collapse all of your Task groups.
   
   

   

   
   Clicking the arrow above the right hand side will minimize and maximize the right hand side so you can see a larger view of your Task and Group area
   
   

   

Creating Task Groups

Task groups are essentially the various milestones in your project. Click Edit Plan button and select New Task Group to create a new group

You can add task groups relevant to your project phases like 'Kickoff,' 'Work Phase,' and 'Final Deliverables.'

Adding Tasks to Your Task Groups

In each task group, you can now add specific tasks:

1. Kickoff Tasks: In the 'Kickoff' task group, you could add tasks such as 'Kickoff Meeting' and 'Gathering Requirements.'
2. Client Task: To engage your clients, consider adding a task for them, like 'Client to Complete First Task.'

You can create Ungrouped tasks by navigating to Edit Plan > New Task

Ungrouped tasks show up at the top of the plan. They can be moved inside groups by using the drag handle on hover. Moving tasks is only available to licensed account users, not to collaborators.

If you want to add a Task directly inside of a Group without having to drag it in, expand the group you wish to add the task to, and select + Add Task

Detailed Task Management

Now that your tasks are in place, let's dive into the additional functionalities that make managing tasks in Coordinate easy and effective:

1. Assigning Tasks: Tasks can be assigned to anyone involved in the project, be it a client or a team member. You can assign tasks in 2 ways:
   
   
   1. From the plan, on the right hand side of any Task
      
      

      

          
   2. Inside any Task modal, the first dropdown option.
      
      

      

           
2. Setting Due Dates: Every task can be associated with a due date to ensure timely completion.
   
   

   

        
3. Status Update: The status of tasks can be updated to reflect the current state of the task, such as 'in progress,' 'blocked,' or 'completed.'
   
   

   

        
4. Call to Action: When assigning a task, you can specify what you expect from the assignee, like completing the task, attaching files, or finishing a checklist.
   
   

   

Enhancing Task Details

To add more clarity to your tasks, Coordinate provides several options:

1. Description: You can add a description to each task, providing more details or a relevant link.
   
   

   

   
   
   
2. Adding Media: Images, videos, or other embedded content can be included for comprehensive understanding.
   
   
   1. You can either attach files to your Task
      
      

      

           
   2. Or you can add images and videos into the Description. Check this guide on best practices on how to embed videos
      
      
3. Start Dates and Progress Bar: A start date can be set, and a progress bar can be used to track the progress of the task.
   
   

   

   
   
   
4. Checklist Items: You can add a checklist for your clients to have an itemized list of subtasks to complete inside of the Task they are assigned.
   
   

   

   
   
   • You can also treat these checklist items as separate subtasks and assign any of these checklist items to any of your collaborators.
     
     

     

     
     
     
5. Task Dependencies: If one task is contingent on the completion of another, you can set this task dependency. Read an in depth guide about Dependencies Here. This also includes how to automate your plan using the Task Status: Wait on Dependencies.
   
   

   

Task Actions

• Move Task - Moves the task to any group within the current project plan
  
  
  • You can also do the same action from the Plan by dragging the drag handle on the left side of any task and moving it to any position inside the group or to any other group
    
    
• Add Tag - if you have any tags on your account, you can apply a tag to your task here
  
  
• Copy shareable link - copy the link to this task here
  
  
  • if you send it to a collaborator that is invited to your plan, it will open the page with the task modal view that you copied
    
    

    

      
  • If you send it to a collaborator that has not been invited, they will see a permissions page
    
    

    

      
• Lock Task - This locks the task preventing any user and/or collaborator from making any edits to it from the plan. Any licensed user on the account can go in to the task modal and toggle to unlock, but any client collaborator will not be able to make any modifications.
  
  

  

    
• Delete Task - completely delete the task from your plan

From the plan, there is a ... menu to the left of every task. Here are some things you can do from that menu:

• Edit Task - Opens the task modal where you can edit your task (if you are a licensed user of have permissions to edit)
  
  
• Duplicate Task - makes a copy of the task directly below the selected task
  
  
• Copy to another project - This will make a copy of the task and place it in the ungrouped area of the selected Project
  
  

  

    
• Delete Task - completely delete the task from your plan

Shifting Due Dates

If you have due dates set on at least 2 tasks inside of a group, you can automatically shift all due dates for those tasks inside of each group.

1. If you know which task's date you would like to automatically shift all other tasks in that group relative to, click on the ... menu to the side of that task and select Shift due dates for this group
   
   

   

2. In the modal that pops up, click on the calendar and select your new date
   
   

   

3. Once your date is selected, you will see the UI change slightly. You will get an info box that says how many business days you are extending the due date by along with showing the date you have selected. Below that, you have the option to select a few tasks that you want to shift or you can click the Select All box to shift all of them.
   
   

   

4. Click Apply and you will see all of the tasks you have selected now have a new due date
   
   

   

Cleaning up the plan/archiving completed tasks and completed groups

If you would like to remove, hide, or archive your completed tasks from your plan, but do not want to delete them, we have a feature that lets you hide your completed tasks and/or groups

• You can set up ways to clean up your plan by using the completed state
  
  
• If you navigate to the plan settings, you can select Hide completed groups and/or Hide completed tasks
  
  

  

    
• Hide completed tasks will visually remove all tasks with the status of complete from the plan
  
  
• Hide completed groups will visually remove all groups that have all tasks with complete status inside 
  
  
• you will see a little eye appear near the top of your task list that will let you know if one both of these checkboxes are enabled.