Task Lifecycle

If you own the project or are a Project Lead for the project, the top level to which you have access is the project, so you can add top-level tasks or add subtasks at any level in the schedule. If you are not an owner or Lead but are assigned to a task, the top level to which you have access is that task. You can add subtasks under your assigned tasks or under any subtask under your assigned task. You cannot add a subtask to a task that is in the In Approval or Completed states.

Anyone with access to a task can view its lifecycle. Task states are controlled by the Project Task policy or by auto-promotion, which is set by a trigger on deliverables.

The Task lifecycle includes these states:

This page discusses:

Draft
To Do
In Work
In Approval
Completed
Auto-Promotion Based on Deliverables Promotion

Draft

The task has been created and an assignee specified. When a Project Lead is ready for work to begin on a task, the Lead promotes it to To Do.

To Do

The system notifies assignees and the tasks appear by default on the assignee's tasks page.

In Work

The assignees have begun work on the task. The system automatically promotes a task to In Work when the % Complete is changed from 0% to any percentage less than 100. Alternatively, an assignee can promote the task to In Work to indicate it is being worked on.

If task auto-promotion is set up based on deliverables promotion, a task can be promoted to In Work once its deliverable object is promoted to In Work.

In Approval

Project members are reviewing the task and its deliverables. When you enter 100% for % Complete, the system automatically promotes the task to In Approval. Alternatively, the task can be promoted to In Approval and the system automatically changes the % Complete to 100%. Typically, an assignee creates a route to have route members review the task. The route can be created with the option to automatically complete the task on completion of the route.

If task auto-promotion is set up based on deliverables promotion, a task can be promoted to In Approval once its deliverable object is promoted to Frozen or Approved.

If a task has the attribute Needs Approval=NO, promoting a task on lifecycle pages or triggers will cause the task to by-pass the In Approval state and go directly to Completed. However, if you explicitly choose the In Approval state for a task while editing its schedule, the task remains In Approval and not go automatically to Completed.

Completed

The task is complete. The system automatically promotes a task to Completed when an assignee enters an Actual Finish Date. Alternatively, an assignee can promote the task to Completed and the system enters the current date as the Actual Finish Date.

If task auto-promotion is set up based on deliverables promotion, a task can be promoted to Completed once its deliverable object is promoted to Released.

Auto-Promotion Based on Deliverables Promotion

A task can be auto-promoted based on the promotion of its deliverable.

This lifecycle state is available on-premises only.

For a description of the task auto-promote feature, see the "Configuration" section in the Project Management Administration Guide.