Creating Tasks for Users

Tasks are a great tool for assigning internal notifications and reminders for your staff's various duties that must be accomplished in regard to your matters. You can also assign tasks directly to your leads/clients themselves, learn more about that here. 

Here we will focus on internal tasks assigned to your Lawmatics users. There are several different ways to create these tasks.

  1. From the event calendar
  2. From a matter's profile
  3. From the Tasks dashboard
  4. Via automation

1. To add a task from the calendar, hover on the CRM tab and select Event Calendar. Then select New Task, located near the top right corner. Below you will see all of the options when creating a task.

  • Name: The name/title of the task
  • Assigned To: Which of your users this task is assigned to. You can select multiple users if needed
  • Assigned by: If assigning this task to someone other than yourself, track yourself as the assignee
  • Tags: Select any tags that go with this task, learn about task tags here
  • Due Date: When must this task be completed by
  • Priority: Select either Low, Medium, or High
  • Associated With: Select which of your matters this task is for
  • Assign Task to Contacts: This allows you to assign the task to any of the contacts on the matter via client portal, learn about that here
  • Description: Add any additional details to the task
  • Done toggle: This will be used to mark the task as "done" once it has been completed

Sub Tasks

You also have the ability to add sub tasks, as shown below:

These sub tasks can be completed individually before the task as a whole is marked a completed.

Recurring Tasks

Tasks can easily be set to recur based on a custom schedule of your choosing. Use this option for any tasks that you need to have repeated on a set schedule so that you do not need to manually recreate the task each time.

When creating a task (or editing an existing task) simply click the button highlighted below to set the recurrence schedule.

You can then choose if the task should repeat daily, weekly, or monthly, and on what day.

When the first iteration of the Task is completed, the next recurring task is created automatically with the same Name, Description, Subtasks, Status, Priority, and Assignee, and it will be due based on the recurrence schedule. 

2. You can also create a task directly from a matter's profile, with all the same options as those listed above. First, navigate to the matter's profile. Below you will see a sample matter profile, with several items highlighted.

  1. Click the Tasks tab to create a new task, as well as to view the task history for this matter. You can also edit or complete any tasks from this tab.
  2. Click the Add Task shortcut to create a new task.
  3. You will see any pending/outstanding tasks in the Upcoming section at the very top of the activity timeline. You can also scroll down on the timeline to see any past tasks.
  4. Use these buttons to easily edit, delete, or complete any current outstanding tasks.

3. Under the CRM tab, you will find the Tasks Dashboard. In addition to creating tasks, here you can also view the firm's tasks for all users and matters in one place. You also have filtering options to filter your tasks by the matter, timeline/status, owner, date, priority level, and tags.

If you prefer to view tasks in the Kanban view as opposed to the List view (shown above), click the layout icon near the top right to change views. Then use the Kanban view to easily drag and drop tasks between statuses.

4. Tasks can also be created via Automation. This is a great way to create any tasks that are standard as part of your intake process as a template. For example, during your intake process you may need a staff member to book a conference room in your office each time a lead books an in-person consultation. This task could be automated, shown below.

When assigning a task via automation, you have the option to select a user lookup field as the Task Owner, as opposed to a static individual. In the example above, the Assigned Staff has been selected as the task owner, so when a matter runs through this automation, whichever user was selected in the Assigned Staff field will become the owner of the task.

Task Notifications

We suggest all users turn on their email notifications for tasks, found in settings > notification settings. You have options to be notified when a task is created, the day it is due, as well as when it is completed. You can also choose to receive these notifications for all of the firms tasks, or only for tasks of which you are the owner (Only Mine options).

FAQ's

What does the option for "Assign Task to Matter Contacts - Share via Portal" mean?

This article focuses on how to assign tasks to your staff, but tasks can also be assigned to your contacts/matters directly via the Portal. Learn about that here.

What happens if a task is overdue?

We suggest turning on the notification for "Task Is Due" so that you will be alerted on the day a task is due. If you do not complete a task before the due date, that task will be labelled as Past Due. It can still be completed once you have finished the task.

How does it work if two users are both assigned to one task?

If more than one user is selected as the task owner, they will each receive notifications for that task according to their respective notification settings. When any user marks the task as completed, all users will be able to see that on the tasks dashboard, calendar, or on the matter profile for that individual. If it is common for your firm to have multiple users assigned to a given task, we definitely suggest they all turn on the Task Marked As Done notification, so they will be alerted that someone else has already gotten to the task.

Related Articles