Tasks are dedicated, colorful single-select fields that help you track the steps necessary to take an item from one feature status to the next.
Feature status is the primary way to monitor the progress of items in Productboard. It offers a high-level overview of what phase each item is in.
But it's often helpful to go one level deeper, tracking the status of individual tasks that must be done before a feature can be planned, worked on, or launched.
In this article:
Creating tasks
To create a new task:
- From the Main menu, click Data > Tasks.
- Click Create in the top right corner.
- Give your new task a name and (optionally) a description.
- (Optional) Edit the default values (Not needed, Planned, Blocked, etc.) by hovering on them and clicking ••• Show more. You can change each value's name, color, and whether it should be the default value. You can also delete values from here.
- (Optional) Add new values by clicking the + Plus button to the right of the Values section header. Give it a name and press Enter to initialize it. You can then edit it by following step 3 above.
Tracking tasks
Task fields are useful for tracking common tasks that apply to many (but not necessarily all) of your features. For example, take product briefs, final designs, release notes, and marketing collateral—since each of these tasks are often owned by different teammates, they're often worked on in parallel.
Here is a list of ways you can visualize tasks in Productboard:
- As a column on a grid.
- As a column on a columns board.
- As a grouping on a timeline or columns board.
- As a card attribute on a timeline or columns board.
- As color-coding.
When you visualize tasks as grid columns or card attributes, you can click directly on them to change their values.
Note: Feature statuses and task values are not connected. Changing the value of a task to "Complete" will not advance a feature to the next status. This must be done manually.
Integration status
Warning: This is only available on the Legacy experience (that means features boards or older roadmaps). It is not available on grids, timelines, column boards, or other parts of the New experience.
Special task fields are created when you set up an integration with a delivery planning tool like Jira, Trello, Pivotal Tracker, or GitHub issues. They allow you to push a feature into the integrated solution and track its status right from within Productboard.
Note: On the New experience, delivery integrations have their own field type—that is, they no longer have to share with tasks.