Repeating tasks

tasks

If you have a task that needs to be performed again and again, you can use this option. To use repeating tasks, make sure that all of the following preconditions are met:

Enable repeating tasks in Admin >> Settings >> Task tracking
Go to Admin >> Task types – enable Repeating on the task type
The task creator (user) has the permission "Edit repeating setting on tasks"

Then create a new task, give it a name. In this case, I put "Testing task".

Under the description, you can choose how often you want the task to repeat and when you want it to end.

The advanced option will open like this. As you can see, the default values are already predefined (usually as every 1 day or the first day in a month/year) but you can change those values manually.

1, setting beginning and end of repeats

Here you can set when exactly you want the repeating to begin. If you want to repeat a task, for example, every month from 1.1.2016, you set the start date to 1.2.2016.

Setting:

Result:

You can see the next start, wich means the next task will be created on the first of march.

2, Create all records now

When the creation is successful You will end up with this. you can see the repeating task and all the related tasks that you created.

The task will then repeat according to your settings. It will have te same duration and same attributes. If you don´t create the tasks at once, they will be automatically created according to your settings. To "hide" the (Repeating) task, you can set the filter like this.

3, How to change task attributes without affecting the iterations

In the current version of Easy Project you additionally have an option to keep the attributes of created future iterations regardless of any changes you make in the repeated task from which the iterations are created by default. For this purpose, each time you make a change in your repeated task, you will find a checkbox "Use for repeating" above the Save button (next to Private notes). If you uncheck it (default status is checked), all future iterations will keep original attributes of the repeated task from the last time it was saved with the box checked. Otherwise, they will inherit current (changed) attributes. This functionality works both for tasks and subtasks.

You will find the checkbox highly useful especially when you need to keep your future task iterations open while the repeated task has already been closed. So you can close the repeated task without being concerned that the iterations will iherit the closed status if not desirable. To have this properly working in subtasks, just turn off the option "After closing parent task, close subtasks" in Administration → Settings → Task Tracking (see the picture below).

If you have a repeating task, and you need to pause the repeating, for a certain amount of time, here is how you do it.

There isn´t really a pause button for repeating task, but you can change the date of next action.

1, update the repeating task

2, edit additional attributes and look for Repeating options

3, find "setting beginning and end of repeats

4, overwrite the start date, and there you have it.

the next action will be moved to the date you filled in there. You can also see the next action date in the task detail.

You can pause the repeating tasks like this for however long you need. Without losing track about previous repetitions.

Corner situations

Task repeat can only be set when creating/editing a task in a project. When creating a task "off-project" (for example, from the homepage), the repeat option is not displayed.
When a task with enabled 'Use for repeating' option is somehow updated (such as a task field value is changed), the update will only propagate to the next records of this repeating task if they have not yet been created. If all the records were created before the task update was made, it would not be propagated to the next records of the repeating task.
If the name of a repeated task changes using the inline editing (the pencil icon) or the quick task editor (the modal view), the next repeats of the task will get the original name regardless of the change made. However, if the name of a repeated task changes using the standard task editor with the checkbox "Use for repeating" ticked, the next repeats of the task will get the new name, without retroactively affecting already created repeats of that task.
If you apply the repeating feature to a distributed task, that repeating is also applied to all subtasks of the distributed task.