Task Management In SharePoint (On-Prim/Online) - Part Two

In our previous article, we learned some basic stuff that we can perform on our task list.

The previous article overviews at a glance,

  • What is Task List in SharePoint?
  • How to create a Task List in SharePoint?
  • Insert some task (item) Task List in SharePoint.

In this second article on Task Management, we are going to do some very cool stuff.

So, here we go…

Let’s first add some more tasks to our Task List like below-

new

Now the first question comes into our mind -- what is the benefit of the information stored in this list and how can we benefit by this.

The answer is as below.

Manage Tasks in Task list

Before going further first change the view of task list as per our need. There are several predefined views for Task List like Calendar, Completed, Gantt chart, Late Tasks, etc.

task

So here we are creating our own view .Click on Modify this View and select the columns that we want to show by default for our list.

list

So now our task list looks like this.

new task

This is slightly different from our previous view.

Don’t worry we are on the right path. This will be more exciting in just a minute.

First, we understand each and every column of this view. We start from beginning to end.

Column 1: Completed

coloumn 1

If we hover over on the first column first row it shows the above information. If we click the checkbox that means this task has been completed. See below Images for more clear understanding

Before

before

After

after

Instantly when we click on check box it's marked as completed and this entry moves to the bottom position in the list.

Column 2 & 3: Start Date and Due Date

These columns show the starting date of the task (i.e. when a task is assigned) and due date; we can say that this is the end date when we have to complete the task to the deadline date respectively.

Column 4: Assigned To

As the name suggests, this is used to assign a task to a user or a group of users.

Column 5, 6 & 7:

% Complete: This field is used to show the percentage of completion of the task. This is a manual field which means we have to enter values manually.

complete

Priority: This column contains the importance of the task. By default, it contains 3 values.

priority

Task Status:

It contains the status of task or we can say that at which stage is the task right now.

status

Note:

If we have a good understanding of Site Columns and Content Types we can do a lot with SharePoint lists. For example, if we want to add some predefined values to our list then we can create our own content type.

Now have a look at item level activities.

Just click on an item in the list as figured below and look into the ribbon for different action,

action

The buttons in the ribbon are shown under the Tasks tab. Some of the actions we know already if we have some basic understanding in SharePoint(like New Item,ViewItem,EditItem,Shared With, Delete Item).

task

Let’s discuss other buttons in the tab.

Insert:

If we click an item in the list then Tasks tab is enabled and when we click the Insert button it inserts an item in the list just before the current selection.

Note:
Don’t confuse with the item word, it is used for a task in the Task List.

list

Outdent and Indent:


In simple words, we can say that these two buttons are used to work with the main task and subtask. Let’s take our list example.

Every task in our list is treated as the main task or the separate task. When we click on Task 2 and then we click on Indent button it becomes the subtask of Task 1.

task1

And when we click on Outdent it reverts the subtask to the main task.

Move Up and Move Down:

These two buttons are used to move the task upward to downward and vice versa in the list. Just notice the positions of tasks in the list.

move

Outline: It is basically used to hide and show the subtask of the main task.

outline

Add to TimeLine: This feature is used to show a task in the timeline (discuss in more details in upcoming article).

Attach File: Used to attach a task specific document to any task in the list.

Alert Me:

This is basically used for mailing purpose or we can say that this is used to send an alert to specific user(s) at some action performed at the task(s).We will discuss its use in next article.

Workflows: Used for workflow purpose.

Summary:

In this article, we learned something new about the task(s) in our task list. Task list makes it easier to manage our Project related activities or task specific activities in our organization. In this way, we can arrange our tasks as per our need.

Your suggestions and questions are always welcome.

Thanks for reading this!

Hope you like it.

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