A L M A S ALMASHelp Open in the app

7. Tasks

Tasks live inside a project (or stand alone as bugs / support tickets). Tasks support assignment, priorities, complexity estimates, deadlines, dependencies, and a free-form discussion thread.

The task workspace

Open Tasks from the sidebar (or press G T). Tasks have a two-pane layout:

  • Left sidebar — date filters: All, Today, Next 7 days, 7–14 days, Overdue.
  • Top tabs — group by Customers, Projects, or Tags.
  • Main area — task cards.

Creating a task

Press N T. Fill in:

  • Name (required).
  • AKA (optional) — a short nickname for the task. Handy when a task has a long formal name but everyone refers to it by a shorthand. When set, it shows as a highlighted (nickname) badge right before the task name everywhere the task appears (lists, kanban cards, search results, the detail header). You can change it any time from Edit — it's just a label, so changing it never affects the task's id.
  • Description (optional, supports rich text).
  • Project — which project it belongs to (optional for standalone tasks).
  • Task type — task, bug, support, etc.
  • Priority.
  • Complexity — a number with a unit (story points, hours, days...).
  • Start date and deadline.
  • Assignee.
  • Status.
  • Parent task — for sub-tasks.

Readable task ids (e.g. AP-F-1)

A task that belongs to a project gets a short, human-readable id in addition to its internal number. It's built from three parts:

<project acronym>-<year letter>-<number> — for example AP-F-1.

  • AP — the project's acronym (here, Apollo Platform).
  • F — the year the task was created. The letters run A = 2021, B = 2022, … so F = 2026, G = 2027, and so on.
  • 1 — the task's order within that project for that year. The first task a project gets in a year is -1, the next -2, and the count restarts at 1 each January.

You'll see this id on the task card, in search, and in the task header. Tasks that don't belong to a project (or were created before this feature) simply show their plain number instead — nothing breaks, you just won't see the lettered form.

The task detail page

  • Breadcrumb back to the parent project (if any).
  • Discussion thread — comment, mention teammates with @name, attach files.
  • Files tab.
  • Dependencies — link other tasks that must be done first; ALMAS will warn if you try to close a task whose dependencies aren't done.
  • Journal — auto-recorded history of changes.
  • Children — sub-tasks displayed below.

Bugs

A bug is a task with the type set to bug. The fastest way to file one is the keyboard shortcut N B — see Reporting bugs for the full flow.

Kanban view

A drag-and-drop board grouped by workflow state. You can open it in two places:

  • All tasks — from the task list page (Tasks in the sidebar), click Show kanban in the top-right of the cards area. Shows every task you can see.
  • One project's tasks — from the project detail page, on the Tasks tab, the filter row at the top has a View as ▾ button next to Export XLS. Click it and pick Kanban (or Gantt for the timeline view). Shows only that project's tasks.

To come back to the previous view:

  • The page header has a Show list button (on the global kanban) or a Back to project button (on the project kanban).
  • The breadcrumb at the top of the page also takes you back. On a project kanban it reads Projects > <project name> > Kanban — clicking the project name returns you to the project detail with the Tasks tab already selected, so you don't have to click into it again.

You'll see one column per workflow state — for the default task workflow that's: Unassigned, Active, On going, Pending, Waiting, Blocked, Concluded, Reopened, Closed, Canceled. Each card shows the task name, its project, and its deadline.

To change a task's status, drag its card into the column you want. The moment you pick up a card, the columns ALMAS won't let it move to fade out — that way you know up-front which moves are legal. If you do try to drop on a faded column, nothing happens.

What happens when a card lands in a new column:

  • A short pulse animates the card.
  • ALMAS asks the server to perform the matching workflow action (for example, dropping a card into Concluded runs the conclude action, which also adds a status-change entry to the task journal — same behaviour as choosing Conclude from the task detail page).
  • If the server refuses (for example because someone else just changed the task, or your role isn't allowed to do that move), the card snaps back to where you grabbed it and a red toast explains why.

A few things to know:

  • You won't see the kanban in read-only mode. Without the update task permission every column fades when you start to drag, which means you can look but you can't move. The page still loads and you can open cards.
  • Order inside a column doesn't save. Dragging a card up or down within the same column is just a visual hint — it resets next time the page reloads.
  • All tasks you can see on the list show up. The kanban doesn't apply the date filters from the list page; it shows everything you have access to.

Selecting many tasks at once

The checkbox on each task row selects the task (it no longer marks it done — use the buttons below for that). As soon as you tick one, a selection banner appears at the top of the list:

  • On the left, next to the count, a Select all / Deselect all toggle picks or clears every task currently shown.
  • The action buttons adapt to what you've selected:
    • Mark done appears when at least one selected task isn't finished yet — it concludes all of them.
    • Reopen appears when at least one selected task is already concluded — it reactivates them.
    • (If your selection is a mix, you'll see both buttons.)

Finished tasks are shown with their name struck through so you can spot at a glance which ones are done. Applying a bulk change updates the rows in place and clears your selection.

Right-clicking a task

Right-click any task row to open a quick menu right at your cursor with Mark as done / Reopen, Pin, Favorite, and Edit. It's the fastest way to act on a single task without opening it. (The menu only appears if your role can update tasks.)