Tasks
In this video we take a look at tasks, which are similar to events, except that they generally don’t have a specific time set aside to work on. The do however have a due date, and we look at that and the other unique features of tasks here. We also cover task statuses, priorities, start dates, due dates, and assigning tasks to other employees. Finally we round out the lesson by looking at adding the tasks portlet to the home dashboard.
Transcript
Tasks in NetSuite are similar to Events and we’ll take a look at them now. Where events almost always have a reserved time, tasks are a lot more likely not to have a specific time. Sometimes you might schedule a time to complete a task, but often they are created without this. Typically, there aren’t attendees for a task either.
Let’s go ahead and create a new task by hovering over Activities, then Scheduling, then Tasks, and clicking on New. This activities menu would have also allowed me to create new Events, Phone Calls, and other records as well.
The first thing I’ll do is give this a title. Something like, Finish the website login template. This is something I have to do, but mostly does not involve anyone else. I’ll go ahead and assign this to myself. I don’t really need to check the notify by email option since this is my task. If it was for someone else though I probably would check this box. This is a high priority item, so let’s set it as such. If I want the task to be placed before any of these others, that can be selected here. Maybe I want it to be the second one, using Insert Before lets me place it there. If I had already started working on this, the status could be set to In Progress. Since I have not started it yet, I’ll leave this alone. The task could also be made private, if I did not want anyone else seeing details about it.
Under the Date and Time section I can select a Start Date and a Due Date. The start date for this is today, and we will make the due date a few days from now. The Date Completed is filled in automatically when you change the status to Completed. I can reserve time on my calendar to complete this if I want, but in this case there really is no need to.
I can make notes about the task in the message tab. This is useful if you are sending it off to someone else, or to help you remember details about it later on.
The rest of these tabs are either similar to, or exactly the same as, those for events. I can link related records, attach files and notes, and track billable time. For now though, I have all the information I need entered for this task. I’ll go ahead and click save and we are placed back in the view mode for the task.
To look at a list of my tasks, I can either click list, up here, or go to Activities, Scheduling, and Click Tasks from anywhere in the system. This list is similar to any other list you may see in NetSuite. There are filters here at the top that can be used to screen out unnecessary records. We can also sort by any of these header fields. Based on the default view though, we can see the one we just created here.
I could also add this list to my home dashboard if I wanted. To do this let’s go to our home screen, and click this Personalize dropdown. If we scroll all the way to the right, in the Standard Content tab, we see this tasks icon. Click it, and now Tasks are listed on the home dashboard. Under the portlet’s menu there are a few options including some setup options, and the ability to create a new task.
Using tasks can help you organize your day, so you can finish your work more quickly, and now you know how to use them.