Managing Tasks

Track everything you need to do — drafts, edits, marketing, admin — across List, Board, and Calendar views, with recurrence, dependencies, attachments, saved views, and per-category custom workflows.

What Tasks Are

A task in Inkwren is anything you need to track: writing milestones, edit passes, contract chasing, marketing follow-ups, anything that has a status. Tasks can be linked to stories, publications, contracts, contributors, destinations, or projects so they show up wherever you need them.

Feature Availability

Tasks is enabled by default. The Tasks link always appears in your sidebar under the Business section, but the feature must be enabled for the page to work — if your workspace administrator has turned Tasks off, opening the page redirects you to the dashboard.

Viewing Your Tasks

Click Tasks in the sidebar under the Business section. Three view modes are available — your last choice persists per device. Mobile devices are forced into List view.

List view

A sortable table with these columns:

• Task (title, truncated description, and clickable entity badges)
• Status (Todo, In Progress, Blocked, or Complete)
• Priority (Low, Medium, High, or Urgent)
• Due Date (red if overdue; the recurring icon ↻ appears next to recurring tasks)
• Assignee (only when your workspace has more than one member)
• Created (hidden on mobile)
• Row actions: green check to mark complete, pencil to edit, trash to delete

When Group By is set to Category, the list switches to a sectioned view with a per-section + Add button. When grouped by Publication / Story, sections appear per linked entity.

Board view

A Kanban board with columns To Do, In Progress, Blocked, and Done. Drag a card between columns to change its status. Full keyboard navigation works — arrow keys move focus, Enter opens the task.

When grouped by Publication / Story, the board renders as collapsible mini-boards per entity. Collapse state persists per device.

Calendar view

A month or week grid (toggle in the view itself) with tasks rendered on their due dates. Drag a task between dates to reschedule. The Today button jumps back to the current date. An Unscheduled tasks panel below the grid lists tasks without due dates.

Calendar view always shows completed tasks — the Show Completed toggle is forced on while in this view.

Matrix board

When you set Layout = Board and Group By = Category with at least one category defined, the board switches to a matrix:

• Rows are categories (collapsible — Uncategorized is pinned at the bottom)
• Columns are statuses
• Drag horizontally to change status, drag vertically to change category
• Each cell has a + button that opens the form pre-filled with both category and status

View Options

Click the View: ... gear button in the header to open the View Options popover:

• Layout: List, Board, or Calendar
• Group by: Status (default), Category, Publication / Story, or Assignee (Assignee is available on workspaces with more than one member)
• Show completed: Hides the Done column on the board and excludes completed tasks from the list (always on in Calendar view)

The funnel button next to it opens the View dropdown, which narrows the visible tasks to a single entity:

• All Tasks (default)
• Publications, Stories, Projects, Destinations (when their feature is enabled)
• Unlinked Tasks (only when at least one exists)

When you narrow to a single entity, Group By auto-switches off Publication / Story since that grouping would be redundant.

Saved views

A tab bar above the content lets you save your current view configuration (layout, sort, group-by, show-completed, and filters) as a named saved view. Click the + button at the end of the tabs to name and save the current setup. Click any tab to switch — settings restore. Hover a custom tab to reveal the X for deleting (the default view can't be deleted).

Filters

Filters above the table — Search is always visible, the rest collapse:

• Search Tasks: matches title only
• Status: All, Todo, In Progress, Blocked, or Complete
• Priority: All, Low, Medium, High, or Urgent
• Category: only when at least one category is defined
• Assignee: only when workspace has more than one member

Creating a Task

1. Click Add Task at the top of the page
2. Fill in the form:
   • Title (required)
   • Description
   • Status: Todo (default), In Progress, Blocked, or Complete
   • Priority: Low, Medium (default), High, or Urgent
   • Effort: Quick (15-30 min), Focus (1-2 hr), Deep (half day+), or Not specified
   • Due Date
   • Category: pick a workspace category, or choose None. If you don't have categories, a link offers to create them in workspace settings.
   • Assignee: only shown in multi-member workspaces
   • Card Color: visual differentiation on board, matrix, and calendar views
   • Repeat (recurrence): see Recurring Tasks
   • Blocked By (Text): free text for external blockers (e.g., "waiting for editor feedback")
   • Blocked By Tasks: see Dependencies
   • Link to Entities: see Linking to Entities
   • Attachments: file uploads with optional cover image
3. Click Save

The task list refreshes and the form collapses. To save and add another, edit the just-saved task or use Save & Add Another patterns through templates.

Recurring Tasks

Toggle Repeat on to expand a recurrence panel:

• Every N day(s) / week(s) / month(s) — interval and frequency
• On [day of week] when frequency is Weekly
• On day [N] (1-31) when frequency is Monthly
• Until [date] — optional end date

A natural-language summary appears in the panel header (e.g., "Every 2 weeks on Tuesday"). Recurring tasks need a Due Date — the recurrence rule won't be created without one. Entity links carry into the recurrence so generated child tasks inherit them.

Dependencies

Use Blocked By Tasks to mark a task as waiting on others:

1. Type to search incomplete tasks
2. Click Add Blocker
3. Existing dependencies show as colored chips. Resolved blockers show "(done)" with a green check.

Inkwren rejects circular dependencies — you can't have task A blocked by task B and task B blocked by task A.

Linking to Entities

The Link to Entities field connects a task to one or more stories, publications, contracts, contributors, destinations, or projects:

1. Type 2+ characters in the search field
2. Results are grouped by entity type
3. Already-linked items show grayed-out with a green "Linked" tag
4. Click an entity to add it as a pending link
5. Pending links display as colored chips (X to remove)

When you save the task, the links persist. Linked tasks appear on the Tasks tab of the related entity's detail page, and badges on the task list link back to the entity.

Custom Workflows per Category

When a workspace category is assigned a workflow template (configured in workspace settings), tasks in that category use the template's status labels and colors instead of the defaults. For example, an "Editing" category might use Drafting → Editing → Reviewing → Done instead of Todo / In Progress / Blocked / Complete.

The status filter, status dropdown, and board column headers all reflect the workflow's labels for that category. Each workflow status maps internally to one of the four base types (Todo, In Progress, Blocked, Complete) so tasks remain interoperable across categories.

Bulk Actions

Select tasks using the row checkboxes:

• Mark Complete: completes each non-completed selection
• Delete Selected: opens a confirmation dialog

Use Template

Click Use Template to apply a saved task template to your workspace:

1. Pick a template from the list
2. Pick a target: Just Tasks, Publication, or Story. When publication or story is selected, narrow to a specific one.
3. The selected template's tasks are created, optionally linked to the chosen entity

Templates are managed in Workspace Settings → Tasks.

Importing Tasks

Click Import Tasks to bring in tasks from another source. Inkwren accepts:

• CSV: parsed against the Inkwren task schema. Use Download CSV Template for the format.
• JSON: Inkwren task export schema. Use Download JSON Template for the format.
• Trello board export: auto-detected from the file structure. Cards become tasks; lists become categories; labels become status hints.

The modal previews parsed tasks before committing the import.

Categories

Categories are configured in Workspace Settings → Tasks. Each category has:

• A name
• An optional color (used as a swatch on cards and in the picker)
• A sort order (controls display order in the form dropdown and matrix-board rows)
• An optional workflow template assignment (see Custom Workflows)

Tier Limits

Tasks count against your subscription tier's limit. The header shows current usage (e.g., "37 / 50 tasks") for tiers with a finite cap. When you're at the limit, the Add Task button is replaced with Upgrade to Add Tasks, linking to the subscription page. With fewer than 10 slots remaining, a yellow capacity warning shows on the form. See Tier Limits for each plan's caps and what counts against them.

Tips

• Use Saved Views for repeated workflows: The view tabs save layout, filters, and group-by — perfect for "morning triage" or "this week's anthology" setups
• Pick Effort honestly: Quick / Focus / Deep helps you grab the right task for the time you have, especially when scanning the list between writing sessions
• Link tasks eagerly: A task linked to a publication shows up on the publication's Tasks tab — no duplicate tracking required
• Use recurrence for habit work: Newsletter writing, weekly editorial review, monthly accounting — set the recurrence once and Inkwren generates the next occurrence automatically
• Try the Matrix board for project-style work: Categories × Statuses with two-axis drag is great for triaging dozens of tasks across editing stages
• Calendar view for deadline planning: Switching to Calendar makes overload visible at a glance — drag tasks between days when you need to rebalance
• Card Color for visual triage: Use color to distinguish urgent client work from personal projects, or active publications from upcoming ones