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Tasks

A task is a unit of work that lives inside a Space. It carries a title, a status, the people responsible for it, and whatever dates, tags, attachments and notes the work needs. Every task is named after its Space. A Space has a short prefix — 2 to 12 uppercase letters, numbers or underscores — and each new task takes the next number in that Space’s series, giving references like OPS-7. The reference is minted when the task is created and does not change.
Tasks in different Spaces are entirely separate series. Two Spaces can each have a task numbered 7; the prefix is what tells them apart.

Fields on a task

The author, created date and updated date are stamped by QuivaWorks and shown in the task’s details popover.

Statuses, priorities and tags

Statuses, priorities and tags are configured per Space, not globally. Open a Space, click the cog in its header to open Edit Space, then go to the Tasks menu — it has tabs for Statuses, Priorities, Tags and Board.

Statuses

A status has a name, a colour, an order, a visibility toggle that controls whether it appears as a board column, a Complete flag, and optionally a role. A new Space starts with six statuses: Rename them, recolour them, reorder them, add your own, or remove the ones you do not use.
Complete marks a status as a closing status. Completed statuses (Done, Blocked, Cancelled, and the like) are treated as closed and will no longer trigger any further actions such as recurring events or overdue checks. This is what the flag is for — it is not just a colour.
A role gives a status a machine-readable meaning — To do, In progress or Done — so automation can move a task by what a stage means rather than by an id. The three dropdowns under the status list are where you set them, and task actions are what read them. Leave them unset and nothing changes; a status never needs a role to be used by hand.

Priorities

A priority has a name, an icon, an icon colour, and an optional default flag. Exactly one priority is the default; if none is marked, the first in the list is used. A Space that has not configured its own priorities uses these:

Tags

A tag has a name, a background colour and a text colour. A Space starts with no tags — you add the ones your work actually needs.

Ids stay stable

Each status, priority and tag has an id derived from its name when it is first created. Renaming the item does not change its id, so tasks already carrying it keep working. This is why renaming “Testing” to “QA” is safe.
The Tasks menu is not offered on the built-in Spaces that QuivaWorks provides itself — their statuses, priorities and tags are fixed.
For API callers: a task’s status, priority and tags are plain strings on the server. Nothing validates them against the Space’s configured lists. A value that matches no configured id is accepted and stored — and then matches no filter, renders as nothing on the board, and is invisible in every status or tag selector. Always send ids that exist in the Space’s configuration.

Assignees, reporter, watchers and mute

Assignees are who is doing the work. Assignment matters beyond display: only a task’s assignees get the completion control on its task actions. Reporter is a single person — who the work is reported to. Watchers are separate and self-serve. Anyone viewing a task can Start watching or Stop watching it; you subscribe yourself rather than being assigned as a watcher by someone else. The watcher count is shown on the task. Mute is per-user too. Muting a task stops it interrupting you — it does not silence the task for everyone else.

Due dates and scheduled dates

A task can carry a due date, a scheduled at date, or both. They are independent:
  • Due date — the deadline. Shown in the list view’s Due column and on the Schedule view.
  • Scheduled at — when the work is planned to start. The task list’s Scheduled filter shows tasks that have one.

Subtasks

A task can be broken into subtasks.
Subtasks are one level deep only. A subtask cannot itself have subtasks.
Subtasks are returned nested on their parent, so opening a task shows its subtasks without a separate lookup. The Sub Tasks section on the task form is where you add them and change their status. Subtask progress can be shown on the board card as a count, a percentage, or both — configured in Edit Space → Tasks → Board.
When a task is reparented or moved to a different Space or contact, you can ask for its subtasks to move with it. Otherwise they stay where they are.
Deleting a task offers to delete its subtasks as well. If you decline, the subtasks remain.

Time tracking

Time tracking lives in the Time Tracking section of the task form. It has two parts:
  1. An estimate — how long the work should take.
  2. Individual time logs — each one a duration, a start date, and an optional description.
Durations use a compact format:
w = weeks, d = days, h = hours, m = minutes. One week is 5 days; one day is 8 hours. Spent, remaining and the progress percentage are calculated by QuivaWorks from the logged entries — you never enter them. Only the estimate is stored on the task itself.
Logging time needs a saved task, so the log controls stay disabled while a task is still being created. Set the estimate then, and log time afterwards.
Each log records who added it and when. The full list is available from the time-tracking history.

Comments

Comments sit at the bottom of the task. Each comment can carry attachments, be replied to, and collect emoji reactions.

Internal and public comments

The composer has two modes:

Internal

Staff-only. Hidden from client and collaborator users.

Public

Visible to everyone who can see the task, clients included.
For staff, the composer defaults to Internal. Internal comments are labelled with an Internal pill wherever they appear.
The internal boundary is enforced by the server, not just hidden in the interface. Internal comments are filtered out of the comment list for client and collaborator users, and those users can never set the internal flag on a comment they write — the flag is stripped if they try.
Replies inherit the type of the comment they answer.

Mentions

Typing @ offers the people you can mention. On an internal comment, client and collaborator users are left out of that list — an internal note cannot mention someone who is not allowed to read it.

Views

The task panel has three views, switched from the toolbar. Your choice is remembered per Space and is also carried in the URL, so a filtered view can be linked and shared.

List

A table of tasks.

Board

One column per status.

Schedule

A calendar of dates and events.

List

Columns are Title, Priority, Created, Status, Due and Assignees. Rows can be selected for bulk actions.

Board

The board renders one column for each status that is marked visible, in the Space’s configured order. Dragging a card to another column changes that task’s status; dragging within a column reorders it. Customise board (available to administrators) turns on editing of the columns themselves — add a column, hide one, reorder them, or remove one. A minimap gives quick horizontal navigation on boards too wide to fit the screen. What appears on a card is configured in Edit Space → Tasks → Board. Each of these can be shown or hidden independently:
  • Title
  • Task id
  • Priority — as an icon, or an icon with its name
  • Assignees
  • Tags
  • Subtask progress — as a count, a percentage, or both
  • Action progress — as a count, a percentage, or both

Schedule

The Schedule view is a calendar with day, week, month, year and list modes. It shows three kinds of entry, each of which can be toggled on or off:
This view is called Schedule, and it is more than a deadline calendar — recurring automation events appear alongside task dates. There is no separate “Calendar View”.
Calendar entries can be dragged to reschedule the task behind them.

Finding tasks

Filters

The toolbar carries:
  • Search — matches a task’s title and description
  • Assignees
  • Priority
  • Status
  • Tags
  • Active / Scheduled / Archived — which set of tasks the list is drawn from
Applied filters appear as chips you can dismiss one at a time. Every filter is written into the URL, so the filtered view survives a refresh and can be sent to a colleague.

My tasks

There is also a cross-Space view of your own work. It returns every task, in any Space, that is assigned to you and not archived — restricted to tasks that have a due date or a scheduled date, since it is a schedule rather than a backlog. A task assigned to you with neither date set will not appear there.

Filtering through the API

The task list endpoint accepts status (comma-separated for several at once), priority, assignees (comma-separated, any match), reporter, created_by, title (a term search), folder, source, parent, archived, scheduled, exclude_subtasks, created_at, updated_at and scheduled_at, plus limit, offset, sort_by and sort_order. The date parameters take a single start date or a {start},{end} range. Subtasks are always fetched alongside their parents and nested under them; exclude_subtasks only drops them from the top level of the list.

Folders and contacts

A task’s folder is not a filing tree you arrange. It is the contact the task belongs to.
A Space anchors its tasks on a contact. When a task is created with a contact’s identity — an email address, for example — QuivaWorks finds or creates that contact and files the task under the key derived from it. The Folder field on the task form is therefore a picker of the Space’s contacts, not a folder hierarchy, and it offers a New contact option at the bottom. Filtering by folder means “every task for this one contact”.
If a task is created with an identity but the contact link cannot be made, the task is still created — losing the work would be worse than losing the link. The API response then carries a base_record_skipped field explaining why the link was not made.
The word “folder” also means an ordinary file folder in a Space’s Files panel. The two are unrelated.

Archiving, deleting and history

Archive takes a task out of the active list without destroying it. Archived tasks are reachable through the Archived filter and can be unarchived from the task menu. Delete removes the task. If it has subtasks, you are asked whether to delete those too. Change log shows the task’s history — field changes, comments and time logs assembled into one timeline, filterable, and exportable as JSON or CSV.

Exporting tasks

Export Tasks in the toolbar’s actions menu produces a CSV or JSON export. You can limit it to a date range on last-updated, or leave the range empty to export everything. The export is delivered to an email address you supply rather than downloaded in the browser.

Editing several tasks at once

Selecting rows in the list view brings up a bulk actions bar, which applies one change across every selected task in a single call.