Navigate to Recurring Tasks by the Clicking Edit Plan button
You can either create a New Recurring Task or view the list of all of your recurring tasks in Edit Recurring Tasks
What is a Recurring Task and what are the benefits to adding them to your project?
Recurring tasks is a template that is used to generate the same task on a given date going forward. That date that you set is NOT the due date, but the date that it shows up/gets created in the plan. For example, if you set up recurring tasks to be scheduled every Monday, a new task will show up in your plan every Monday.
If you have tasks that you know you will need to create on a daily/weekly/monthly/even yearly basis, you can use the Recurring Tasks feature to automate that process so these tasks appear in your plan on your set timelines.
Example: if you have a weekly meeting that you schedule with your plan that you create every Monday, you can set up Recurring Tasks to create that meeting for you.
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Important to know: Recurring Tasks work a little bit differently than normal Tasks and similar but not quite like events on a calendar.
When you create a Task, it appears immediately in your plan.
When you create a Recurring Task, it ONLY shows up when the selected Relative Date + day value passes. You will not see tasks in your plan right away.
Don't worry, we will go over in much more detail on how to set up your recurring task to work right for you in the sections below.
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Understanding how to set up a New Recurring Task
If you have already created a Task, most of these settings and options will be very familiar to you. If you need a refresher course, please read the detailed article about setting up your tasks here.
The top section reflects pretty closely to what you would see when creating a new task. You can edit the Task name, Assign the task to a collaborator, change the Task Status, and add a Call to action for the assignee option.
Once set, every time a new task is created, what you have selected in this section is exactly what will be on the Task created.
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Don't worry, it is not set in stone! you can edit this section any time, your changes will be applied on the next iteration of the Task that is created
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Here is something that you won't find in the regular Task modal - Pause this Recurring Task
If you wish to stop generating tasks for a time, but don't want do delete the Recurring Task, you can toggle Pause and there will be no more tasks created from these settings until you unpause again.
If you have created tasks, you should be familiar with this side menu as well. You might notice that a few of the fields that would normally be in tasks are missing. Since this is not a task, but a template which generates new tasks, options such as time tracking and dependencies are disabled.
If you wish to add dependencies, track time, move the task, etc, you will have to add them in the task modal after the task is created.
The next section is very important and is required to start generating tasks from this recurring tasks template.
You will need to set the frequency at which this template will be generating new tasks in your plan.
Set a value and select Days, Weeks, Months, or Years in the Repeat every section.
Example: if you set a value of 1 and Weeks, you will generate a task once every calendar week.
Select a calendar day in the Repeat relative to section. For example, if you set June 1 set to repeat every 1 weeks, the date that the task will be added to your plan will be June 8.
Once you fill in the required fields, you will know that you have set up the recurring tasks correctly if you see the info about when the next task will be created.
You can also create a task immediately if you do not want to wait until the date in the info box, you can click on the button that says I want to create a task now and not wait until [date]. This is located on the bottom right of the modal.
Setting up a Start Date and/or Due Date
If you would like to set a start and/or due date on your tasks when they are created, you will need to turn on that feature.
If you toggle on either of these features, you will be able to set the dates. Please note that as soon as the task is created using the Recurring Tasks template, the start and/or due date will be calculated based on the value of days/weeks/months.
If you keep the default values of 0 days for both relative start date and due date, as soon as the task is created, it will be due the same day.
If you don't enable this feature, when the task is created, the start and due dates will be blank, so use this feature only if you have specific start dates and due dates in mind from task creation.
Using this feature, think about how long you want to give the assignee to complete the task (example: 5 days). Simply use that value give or take a few days to add +5 Days from task creation.
Tip: Most people use due dates more than start dates in their plans.
Selecting which group you want the task to be created in
The last setting in the modal you can pick is which group you would like the tasks to be created into once the Recurring Tasks template is activated.
If you do not select anything, the tasks will show up ungrouped at the very top of your plan.
Please note: You must first create the group in your plan before you can select it from this dropdown. If you create your recurring task and then realize you still need to create the group, don't worry, you can go back and edit any recurring task at any point.
Editing Recurring Tasks
Select Edit Recurring Tasks from the Edit Plan dropdown in your plan
You will see a list of all recurring tasks you have created in this Project. You can click them to open the modal to make any changes you want. Any changes you make will be automatically saved.