There are many states that a task can exist in aside from being incomplete and completed. Task statuses allow you to clearly visualize and differentiate between those states for yourself or your team with just a click.
Please note that Task Statuses are available on Solo, Plus and Pro plans only. You can see a comparison of all Flow plans here. In Basic plans, users will have access to To Do and Completed statuses only.
Task statuses allow you to more accurately communicate what state a task is in, and what the next steps should be. There are five statuses that you can choose from. You or your team can determine exactly what the statuses mean to you, but here are some guidelines to start with and a quick description of how they’re visually represented:
- To Do - Open checkbox - The task is open and actionable, but perhaps not actively In progress
- In Progress - Checkbox with arrow - The task is actively being worked on
- Blocked - Checkbox with exclamation point - The task isn’t currently able to be worked on because the way forward isn’t clear. This could mean that feedback is required, assets are needed, or the work has been deliberately paused until some action is taken.
- Completed - Green checkbox with checkmark - The work required for the task to be finished has been done in full.
- Cancelled - Checkbox with x - A good substitution for deletion/completion if you want to communicate that the task is no longer required or the plans around it have permanently changed, so the task is being pulled from the active project.
You will be able to quickly determine the status of the task by looking at the checkbox that precedes the task name anywhere it appears in the app, including in notification cards under My Updates on Home. You can also hover over the checkbox/status to see the status name.
Setting a Status
Statuses should be used when the state that a task is in changes. For example, if you’re going to start work on it, the status would change from To Do > In Progress. If your progress on that task impeded for some reason, it could change from In Progress > Blocked. You don’t have to follow a standard process with statuses—it’s more about passively communicating to your team where a task is currently at and alerting them to any big changes.
There are two ways to set the status on a task. The first is to open the task and click the status item in the task menu bar.
Click the menu item to see a dropdown of all your options and click to apply the new status.
You can also use CMD+click to see the task status dropdown in list and column views. Simply hold CMD on your keyboard and click the checkbox to see the menu. Click to select the new status or click anywhere outside of the menu to close it. Clicking the checkbox without holding CMD will complete the task.
Changing which Task Statuses you see
By default, you will see all tasks, regardless of their status, in your Projects and Tasks views. If you decide, however, that you don’t want to see certain statuses, like Cancelled or Completed, you can toggle those options off in the Show menu.
Click Show above the Tasks or Project view and toggle off the “Display All Tasks” option.
This will reveal all the task statuses currently available on your plan. To hide a particular status from view, simply click the checkbox next to it. The status will be hidden from view until you toggle it back on in the Show menu.
Notifications for changed statuses
Any changes to a task’s status will be captured in the task’s history. Simply click the “History” tab above the comments section to see the status change and any other updates made to the task behind the scenes.
If you want to be notified when a teammate changes a status on a task that you’re following or assigned, you can enable this setting in your Notification Preferences. Click the bell icon next to your avatar in the navigation bar and then click on the gear icon in the dropdown.
You can choose to be notified by desktop notification, email notification, or both. Just click the checkbox under the Email or Desktop column next to Subscribed task’s status changes. You can uncheck these at any time to stop receiving this type of notification.
