In this article:
What are tasks?
Tasks form a vital component of every project management application, and LawVu is no different. You can think of tasks as a supercharged 'To do' list.
In a typical To-do list, you just have the name of an item and a checkbox to say if you have 'done it or not'. Tasks in LawVu follow the same system, but the difference here is that you can capture a lot more information around a task (if you want to), including dates, files, and discussions - and you can assign tasks to the team members to complete.
If time and financial information are supplied, tasks can count towards matter budgets, allowing you to see where your time is being spent quickly.
Working with tasks
Tasks are associated with Matters and have a dedicated tab on a matter:
You can also access and edit them from the Planner:
Adding tasks
Start on the Add task button and type the name of your first task. When you finish, press 'Enter', and you can start the name of your second task. Working in this manner allows you to quickly flesh out a list of tasks relevant to the matter you're working on.
You can keep the information 'light' at this time and then come back to provide more details if necessary.
Note: When Due Date is chosen, 9:00 AM is set as a default time for tasks. You can change it accordingly.
Assigning tasks
To assign the task to yourself or someone else, click on the people-picker icon to the right of the task to select someone from the list or open the task pane and edit the Assignee field.
Users with the right permissions will be able to view the Tasks related to the matters they're a member of. It will be available in the Planner.
Note: There is a character limit to the task names and descriptions: 250 for task names and 5000 for descriptions. If you notice that the task name is not displaying the complete task name, consider renaming the task shorter and typing the rest of the details in the description box.
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The task panel
When you click on a task, you will notice that the task area splits in two. On the left side, you have your list of tasks; on the right side, you have the details view of the selected task, also called the task panel.
The task panel is a simple view that allows you to capture or edit details in the task to:
Mark the task as complete
Create a sub-task
Duplicate or delete the task
Change the name of the task.
Quickly view the matter and sub-matter the task is linked to
Assign the task to yourself or someone else
Select the 'type' of the task - standard, milestone, court date, meeting
Specify a due date (if a due date is specified, the task will also appear in your LawVu planner)
Add a description
Upload files to the task
Add any external links
Have a conversation within the task and members to the conversation using the people-picker (participants should be matter members)
Enable/disable notifications for comments added to the task
By default, the 'More fields' drawer is closed unless there is data in any of the four fields (Start date, End date, Estimated hours, Hourly rate). Clicking on 'More fields,' you can capture:
The start and end date of a specific time so that the time recorded using these dates can be used in your custom reports.
The hourly rate
Estimated hours it will take to complete the task.
Incomplete tasks
When closing a matter, you will be prompted with the below modal if there are incomplete tasks. You will have the option to Continue to close the matter without completing the tasks or close the modal by clicking Cancel and marking the tasks as complete first prior to closing the matter.
The Tasks grid
Under Hub > Tasks, you will see a grid displaying the tasks assigned to you across all matters in LawVu.
Users can quickly access, action, and edit their tasks without having to go into the matters themselves simply by editing them from the task grid. Click on the name of the task you want to edit to display the task panel on the right-hand side.
The tasks grid can be filtered and sorted, allowing you to display only the tasks that are relevant and important to you at any given moment.
If you want a local copy of your tasks list, use the Export icon at the top right of the grid to start an Excel download to your local drive:
Save tasks as templates
Where tasks become very powerful is their ability to be saved and reused whenever you create certain types of matters.
See this article for more details on saving and reusing tasks.