ClickUp for Project Managers
View and create tasks, organized by space and folder. Track statuses, due dates and dependencies. Build dashboards.
Use the basic features of ClickUp for core management tasks. Tasks and projects are king.
- Gabriel, our Dear Leader and CEO
Tangible's ClickUp account
📒 General structure
There's a particular structure Tangible generally uses in ClickUp. It's roughly this:
- A client account → ClickUp Space
- A client project → ClickUp Folder
- A complex featureset → ClickUp List
- A goal or planned feature launch → ClickUp Milestone
- A deliverable (interface, document, design screen, feature, bugfix) or other work item that a client has requested → ClickUp Task
- A minimum addressable task when further detail is required for a work item or its delivery must be assigned to multiple team members → ClickUp Subtask
- A small request, scheduled consulting call or other responsibility that requires time tracking but doesn't need to have specific details attached to the work item → Evergreen task
Intro to the ClickUp Hierarchy
🙋♀️ Assignments and other user-task associations
Clickup tasks can have people associated with them in the following ways:
- Assignees: the task has been delegated to this/these user/s. They are responsible for doing the work required to complete it, and moving it between active statuses (Ready to start → In progress → In review).
- Watchers: watchers are users who recieve notifications about updates to the task.
- Assigner: a custom field meant to contain the project manager who created and assigned the task, or who is currently overseeing it.
Managing watchers | Assigning tasks
⚡️ Automations
ClickUp allows creation of automations based on events related to tasks and on recurring schedules. Automations are managed at the Space level. PMs generally use automations to:
- Auto-assign themselves as watchers to all tasks in the space so that they'll receive notifications about updates to all tasks.
- Automatically add themselves to the "Assigner" custom field on newly-created tasks.
⚠️ Dependencies
ClickUp allows definitions of dependency relationships between tasks. These relationships mean that one task is defined as "blocking" another, and needs to be completed before the task it is blocking can be completed.
Dependencies are especially useful for linking tasks to Milestones.
Learn more about dependency relationships
📣 Statuses
Tangible has developed some default statuses to help organise our client and internal projects. We generally use these as the default for all spaces.
Tangible's default statuses are:
- 🌲 Evergreen Tasks: This task won't switch statuses until it's no longer of use, at which point it will be closed. For generic tasks like "Project management and client communication" or "Small requests or project consultation".
- 🩶 Ideas: This task is just a concept, it hasn't been scoped out or the client isn't yet interested in an estimate.
- 🧡 Requires Estimate: This task is pending estimates from the team.
- 💛 Pending Greenlight: This task is pending approval from the client, we've sent them a proposal or estimates.
- 🩵 Ready to start: This task is ready for delegation, or the team member it has been delegated to hasn't begun work on it yet.
- 💙 In progress: A team member is actively working on this task.
- 💚 In review: The assigned team member feels they have met the criteria layed out in the task. This task is pending review by the assigner.
- ✅ Completed: The assigner has reviewed the task and deemed it completed. They will now inform the client that the task is complete/launched.
- 🗄️ Closed/Cancelled:: This task doesn't need any further action and is unlikely to be re-opened.
When you create a new space with the "Tangible default client space" template, these statuses will be auto-applied as the space default. Statuses can be overridden on individual folders and lists, which may benefit from use-case-specific statuses, such as content production, quality assurance, ongoing plugin development, bug tracking, etc.
Learn more about ClickUp Status functionality | Learn about Status Templates
🕰️ Time estimate and time tracked
Tangible handles time tracking in a separate, integrated tool called Hubstaff. Tasks are synced to Hubstaff from ClickUp, and recorded time is synced back to ClickUp from Hubstaff.
Time should never be tracked directly in ClickUp or using its Chrome extension, nor should time be manually added to tasks in ClickUp. All tracked time should originate in Hubstaff.
Time estimates, on the other hand, live on ClickUp tasks. Estimates should be entered into tasks once they've been collected from the implementation team and reviewed by a strategist. Inputting estimates helps us to keep track of how much time we've expended against the budgeted time for the task. Estimates should be in actual hours needed from staff, and estimates in Senior Hours provided to clients should be indicated in the task description.
Learn more about Time estimates | Learn more about the ClickUp-Hubstaff integration
🏠 Task multi-homing
Tasks in ClickUp can be assigned to multiple lists. When a billable client request involves a development on an internal product (MemberSync, Tangible Cred, etc.), the task should be added to that product's feature development list as well, with the home list being set to reflect who gets billed. Multi-homing also has utility when using ClickUp's Sprint features, which Tangible infrequently but occasionally uses.
Learn about Tasks in multiple Lists | Intro to Sprints
Workload management and personal organisation tools
ClickUp offers an overwhelming amount of features and tools. Here are some that can be helpful for personal organisation, and helping other team members organise themselves.
📋 Personal List
Tasks on your personal list are only visible to you. Don't use this for anything that needs to be synced to Hubstaff, or anything that others need to collaborate on or be able to view. Tasks in your personal list are only visible on your home page.
Learn more about Personal Lists
📌 Tray
The tray is a tool for temporarily pinning a task or a doc so that you can quickly access it wherever you are. Add tasks to your tray by using the "Minimize" action when viewing a task, or selecting Add to → Tray in the context menu in a task listing view.
Learn more about minimizing tasks to the tray | Learn more about minimizing docs to the tray
📚 Priorities
Priorities is a tool for creating a small collection of tasks you're currently focused on for easy reference and recall. You can add a task to any user's Priorities, and view other users' Priorities on their profile overlay, which can be accessed via search or by opening your own profile and navigating by clicking your name to switch viewed user.
To add a task to your or another user's Priorities, select Add to → Personal Priorities in the context menu in a task view. Tasks at the top of Priorities are "next up" and are removed from the stack once they're complete, just like the stack of books next to your bed!
📝 Notepad
Keep small named notes. Open the notepad with keyboard command k or by clicking the "Open Notepad" icon in the topbar quick action menu.
⏰ Reminders
ClickUp lets you schedule reminders, for things you want to be notified about but which shouldn't be tasks. Reminders can be created on your own behalf or delegated to other users. Reminders can be created with the keyboard command r, from the command center, or by clicking the "Create a reminder" icon in the topbar quick action menu. Reminders can be scheduled and support recurrence.
Intro to Reminders | Recurring Reminders