Note: This feature is currently available for ticket and problem modules.
Effective task management is essential for optimizing productivity, tracking ownership, and ensuring timely completion of projects. By allowing users to reorder tasks and specify dependencies, Freshservice simplifies task prioritization and execution, reducing manual efforts and minimizing errors. This enhancement empowers users to manage their workflows efficiently, improving overall efficiency and facilitating smoother project execution.
To enhance task management further and effectively manage tasks, you can:
Prioritize tasks with reordering of tasks
Establish dependencies between tasks
Prioritize tasks with reordering of tasks:
You can reprioritize tasks in multiple ways, including assigning a stack rank to the task. Stack rank refers to the position of a task within the overall task list. You can reorder tasks using four methods:
Drag and drop individual tasks to the desired position.
Update the stack rank number manually.
Click the (+) button located between two tasks to insert a new task.
Utilize the "Move to Top" or "Move to Bottom" options to relocate tasks instantly.
Consider the example below:
Consider a scenario where there is a change request that needs to be executed for setting up and configuring a server. 7 Tasks have been prioritized in the order of execution. However, there is a need to equip the server (Task 6) right after there is access to the infrastructure (Task 2)
To achieve this, you can simply update the rank for the ‘equip the server’ task to 3 or use the methods mentioned above. In this case, the original task 3 (Hardware check-in function and design) will become task 4; task 4 will become task 5; task 5 will become task 6, and so on.
Similarly, if you’d like to update the rank of ‘Access the infrastructure to assign the location’(2) right after task ‘equip the server’(6), update the rank of ‘Access infra to assign location’ to 6. All the other tasks will be updated to ensure sequential ranking.
Note: When a user updates a task, any specific workflow actions or rules tied to that task will be triggered. However, this behavior will not be applied to tasks updated automatically by the system due to stack rank changes of a specific task. Also, when workflows involve task status updates, they will follow validation rules based on dependency settings, if enabled.
Enabling task dependency:
Users will have the option to specify the order of execution for tasks. By enabling the ‘Finish to start dependency,’ the default behavior is a sequential dependency of tasks, i.e., Task 1 must be finished before Task 2 can commence.
Enabling Finish to start dependency
Upon enabling the dependency, users will be prompted to decide whether to retain the status of completed tasks. Choosing "yes" will result in completed tasks being moved to the top,while selecting "no" triggers validation to update completed task statuses to ‘Open’ or ‘Blocked’.
Disabling Finish to start dependency
Disabling the dependency does not change the status of the tasks and will retain them as it is.
Task status:
Freshservice allows you to choose existing default task statuses or create custom statuses based on your existing process. Among these options, "Blocked" is provided as a default status, carrying specific significance:
1. Users can designate tasks as "Blocked" when no dependency configuration is selected.
2. With a "Finish to Start" dependency, users cannot manually set a task as blocked; the system assigns this status based on validation rules.
3. When a task is in the blocked status, the OLA timer stops running.
Ordering tasks based on the order of execution:
Sequential execution of tasks:
Tasks can be assigned unique ranks to ensure tasks are executed in the right order. As per the image below, the sequence of tasks would be to get approval, access the infrastructure to assign location, hardware check-in for function and design, and so on.
Parallel execution of tasks: (Applicable only when the ‘Finish to start’ dependency is enabled)
In cases where tasks must be parallelly executed in a given sequence, these tasks can be ranked at the same level to ensure parallel execution.
Note: Drag and drop the task adjacent to the task you’d like to update the rank for, and then update the stack rank of the succeeding task.
Example: If you’d like to equip the server parallelly when the hardware check is happening, drag and drop the task ‘equip the server’(6) right after ‘hardware check-in function and design’(3). Then, update the rank from 6 to 3. Now, both the tasks will be ranked 3, and the succeeding tasks will be sequentially ranked.
Please note:
A maximum of 100 tasks can be created under a parent entity.
Tasks created through workflows, supervisor rules, or APIs will always be stack-ranked and added as the last task in the list.
You will no longer have the option to close tasks by marking them as completed. Instead, you should update the status of the task to 'Completed'.
