Projects & tasks
Tasks
Create and assign tasks in Spyral, move them across the board, and see what is due on the calendar.
Tasks are Spyral's to do list for your firm. Each one has an owner, a status, a priority and a due date, and the people you assign them to are told.
Where tasks live
Tasks is in the left sidebar. The header shows how far the list has got, for example 7 of 19 done.
The page has two views.
Board is a kanban board with three columns: To Do, In Progress and Done. Drag a card from one column to another to change its status. A drop area appears as you drag.
Calendar lays the same tasks out by due date, one month at a time, with arrows to move between months and an Upcoming list underneath. Tasks with no due date do not appear here.
Creating a task
Use New task. The dialog has six fields.
- Title. Required, up to 255 characters. This is what shows on the card, so make it specific: "File Alpha Holding FY2024 accounts" rather than "filing".
- Description. Optional, and longer.
- Status. To Do, In Progress or Done.
- Priority. Low, Medium or High. Medium unless you change it. Priority shows on the card as a coloured dot.
- Assignee. Anyone on your team, or Unassigned. Only people in your firm's Spyral team appear here.
- Due Date. Optional. Dates that are close or already past are highlighted on the card.
Spyral confirms with Task created successfully.
Assigning work
When you assign a task to someone other than yourself, that person gets a notification in Spyral. Clicking it opens the task.
You cannot assign a task to somebody who is not a member of your team. Invite them first, under Team.
Editing and deleting
Each card carries a ⋯ menu with Edit and Delete. Editing opens the same fields as creation. Deleting asks you to confirm and cannot be undone.
Deleting tasks is not part of the default consultant role. If Delete is unavailable to you, the tooltip will say so. Ask an administrator at your firm to remove it, or to grant the permission under Team, then Roles and Permissions. Creating, editing and completing tasks are all available to consultants.
Two task boards, and the trap between them
Spyral has task boards in two places, and they do not share their contents.
- The Tasks page in the sidebar holds your firm's tasks. Tasks created here belong to no project.
- The Tasks tab inside a project holds that project's tasks.
A task created on the Tasks page will never appear on a project board, and a task created on a project board will never appear on the Tasks page. There is no way to move a task from one to the other after the fact.
Decide before you create it. If the work belongs to an engagement that has a project, create the task inside that project. If it is general firm work, create it on the Tasks page.
This is the most common "where did my task go" report we get, and it is nearly always this.
Where else tasks show up
- The Home page shows a My tasks panel with the open tasks assigned to you, soonest due first, and a tile counting them.
- The Calendar on the home page overlays task due dates with annual accounts filing deadlines, so you see both in one month view.
- A project's Analytics tab counts that project's tasks by status and by member.
Related
Projects
Create a project in Spyral, choose between a standard and a company project, link the companies it covers, and understand what each tab holds.
Team members and roles
What a manager, an administrator, a consultant and a viewer can each do in Spyral, and how roles are assigned in your firm's workspace.