Update Task Progress and Priority

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About this lesson

Understand how to update task progress, change the status and set a priority level.

Quick reference

Update Task Progress and Priority

Keep track of how a project is progressing by updating task progress and priority. 

When to use

We update the task progress and priority whenever we want to indicate how a task is progressing, if it's falling behind schedule, or if it requires urgent attention. 

Instructions

Update Task Progress and Priority

We can keep an eye on task progress by updating the progress and priority fields.  

  • From Board view, open any task. 
  • In the Progress field, click the drop-down arrow. 

We have a choice of Not started, In progress, and Completed. 

  • Choose In progress. 

We may want to update the priority of the task also. For example, if a task is running late we may change the progress to In progress but mark the priority as Urgent. 

  • In the Priority field, click the drop-down arrow. 

We have a choice of Low, Medium, Important and Urgent. 

  • Choose Urgent. 

Filter Tasks by Priority

We can filter tasks by priority. For example, we might want to see all tasks that have been marked as urgent. 

  • Click the drop-down arrow next to Filter. 
  • Expand the Priority section. 
  • Choose Urgent from the list. 

Mark Tasks as Complete

Mark Checklist Items as Complete

Some tasks have checklist items or subtasks. We can mark the checklist items as complete as well as the primary task they belong to. 

  • From Board view, open the task. 
  • Scroll to the Checklist section. 
  • Click the circle next to the checklist item to mark it as complete. 

The progress bar above will update to reflect how many checklist items have been completed. We can also see an indicator on the contact card that tells us how many checklist items have been completed. 

Mark a Task as Complete

Marking checklist items as complete does not affect the completion status of the primary task. For example, if a task has three checklist items and we mark all checklist items as complete, the primary task is not marked as complete. 

We can mark a task as complete in two ways:

  • From Board view, open the task. 
  • Click the drop-down arrow in the Progress field. 
  • Select Complete from the list. 

Alternatively, click in the circle next to the task name to mark it as complete. 

Completed tasks show with a strike-through and will be moved out of the task list and into a completed bucket. Completed tasks are not deleted so we can still view them and if required, change the status back to In Progress to reinstate them to the task list. 

Hints & tips

  • When we mark a task as urgent, a small red bell icon will show on the contact card. 
  • When we change a task's progress to In Progress, a circle icon will show on the contact card.
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  • 00:03 Once work commences on the project plan, we're going to need to go in and
  • 00:08 update the status of our tasks.
  • 00:10 Because it's really important that we keep on top of how each task in our
  • 00:15 plan is progressing, and keep those things up to date.
  • 00:18 Remember there could be multiple people all looking at and using this plan.
  • 00:22 So we need to make sure that we're reflecting accurately how far through
  • 00:26 the project we actually are.
  • 00:28 And in Planner we don't have loads of different options,
  • 00:31 we simply have three, not started, in progress, and complete.
  • 00:36 So I'm going to scroll down to the bottom of Scope and
  • 00:39 I'm going to open up the first task, Secure core resources.
  • 00:43 Now we update the progress by changing whatever we have in this progress
  • 00:47 drop down.
  • 00:48 So currently it's showing as not started, but as soon as it does start,
  • 00:52 I'm going to change it to in progress.
  • 00:55 So notice what happens here, we get this little icon.
  • 00:58 If we close this window down and take a look at the card in the bucket.
  • 01:03 You can see that that's also reflected on the card just last.
  • 01:06 So at a glance, I can see that this particular task is in progress.
  • 01:11 So this is a nice visual indicator,
  • 01:13 it means that I don't have to keep opening up the task to see what the status is.
  • 01:17 Now I want to show you what happens when a task goes overdue.
  • 01:22 So I'm going to need to do something which doesn't make a great deal of sense in
  • 01:26 this particular context.
  • 01:28 But just really to demonstrate this to you,
  • 01:30 I'm going to change the due date of this task to a date before today's date.
  • 01:35 So I need to go all the way back.
  • 01:37 And let's just say the due date of this task was the 13th of October,
  • 01:41 which was last week.
  • 01:42 If I close this down, take a look at this card now.
  • 01:45 You can see that underneath we now have this red warning which shows us the date
  • 01:50 this was due.
  • 01:51 And it's another visual indicator on that card that this task needs to be dealt with
  • 01:56 because it's gone past its due date.
  • 01:58 So if I have a task that's like this and
  • 02:01 it's in progress I might then want to change the priority to maybe urgent.
  • 02:05 So that this task really stands out to the people who are working on it.
  • 02:09 And again as soon as I make this task urgent we can see that little bell icon
  • 02:13 indicated on the card.
  • 02:15 So all of the changes that we're making within these tasks are being indicated on
  • 02:20 that card.
  • 02:21 So it's a really nice visual way of looking at things.
  • 02:24 Now, let's say that this team get on top of this and they complete the task.
  • 02:29 What they would then need to do is open up the task and mark it as complete.
  • 02:33 And there's a couple of different ways that you can do this.
  • 02:35 You can click the In progress dropdown and choose Completed.
  • 02:38 Or alternatively, if we take a look at the task title at the top,
  • 02:42 Secure core resources.
  • 02:44 If we just select the circle next to it, that's going to mark the task as complete.
  • 02:48 You can see we now have a strikethrough,
  • 02:51 the progress has changed in the middle to Completed.
  • 02:54 And the task has been moved out of the bucket.
  • 02:57 And you can see we now have a new Completed tasks bucket at the bottom.
  • 03:02 So if I expand this, I can see all of my Completed tasks.
  • 03:06 So when you do complete a task, they don't disappear from the plan.
  • 03:10 You're going to find them in that Completed tasks bucket.
  • 03:13 And of course, if you decide for
  • 03:16 some reason that you need to bring this back, you can click in.
  • 03:21 And just change the progress to In progress or not started,
  • 03:27 and that's going to put that back into the bucket.

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