Work items

Create work items, understand keys, types, statuses and priorities, and change items one at a time or in bulk.

A work item is a single piece of work: a task, a bug, a story, an epic, a milestone. It has a title, a type, a status, a priority, and optionally an assignee and dates. Every item belongs to one project and gets a key such as RMK-24, so it can be referred to anywhere. This page covers creating items and the everyday changes you make to them, one at a time or in bulk.

What a work item has#

Key: The project’s key prefix plus a number, such as F3L-45. Numbers are assigned in order and never reused. The key stays the same for the life of the item, even if its type changes.
Title: Required, up to 500 characters.
Type: The kind of work. Seven types are built in: Task, Bug, Story, Epic, Initiative, Subtask and Milestone. Your organization can add more. See Work item types.
Status: Where the item is in the project’s workflow. Only moves the workflow allows are accepted. See Workflow statuses.
Priority: One of none, low, normal or urgent. New items start at none.
Assignee: One active member of the organization, or Unassigned. An item whose assignee has left the organization shows Former member.
Start and Due: Optional dates. An item needs at least one of them to appear on the Calendar, Timeline, Gantt and Workload views.
Estimate and Points: How big the work is, in hours or story points. See Estimation.
Tags and custom fields: Organization-wide labels and extra fields. See Tags and custom fields.

Who can do what#

Permissions

work_item.viewwork_item.creatework_item.managework_item.delete

work_item.view lets you see items. work_item.create lets you create, duplicate and add subtasks. work_item.manage covers editing: status, priority, assignee, dates, estimates, dependencies and bulk changes. work_item.delete lets you archive and restore items. By default Members can create and edit, Viewers can only look, and archiving is limited to Owners and Admins.

Create a work item#

From the New item dialog#

Open the project and select New item
The New work item dialog opens.
Enter a title
Title is the only field you have to fill in.
Choose a type and priority
Type starts on Task and Priority on none. You can change both here.
Select Create item
A message confirms the new key, for example “Work item RMK-60 created”, and the item appears in every view of the project. It starts in the project’s first status. If the item is refused, the dialog stays open with your text and shows the reason.

Quick add on a board#

On the Board, select + Add at the bottom of any column, type a title and press Enter. The item is created as a Task in that column. If the board has swimlanes, it also gets that lane’s assignee, priority, type, sprint, release or tag. Press Esc to cancel.

Other ways items are created#

Subtasks: type into the Subtasks panel on an item’s page. See Subtasks.
Duplicate: copy an existing item from its page. See Duplicating an item.
Recurring rules: create a new item on a schedule. See Recurring work items.
Forms, requests, automations and integrations can create items too. See Forms and Automations.

Required custom fields

If your organization has a custom field marked Required, every new work item needs a value for it. The New item dialog, quick add and the Subtasks panel have no custom field inputs, so creating an item from them will be refused while a required field exists. Leave custom fields optional unless every creation path can fill them in.

Change an item#

You can change most fields in several places, and they all follow the same rules:

On the item’s page: open it by selecting its title or key. Change Status, Priority, Assignee, Start, Due, Estimate (h) and Points, and edit the title and description in place. Changes save when you pick a value or click away. See Work item details.
In a List or Table cell: title, status, priority, assignee, dates, estimate, points and custom fields can be edited directly in the row.
On a board: drag a card to another column to change its status, or to another swimlane to change that lane’s field. See Boards.
On the Calendar, Timeline or Gantt: drag to reschedule. See Timeline and Gantt.

Assign an item#

On the item’s page, pick someone from Assignee, or select Assign to me. Choose Unassigned to clear it. Only active members of your organization can be assigned.

Change the status#

Pick a status from Status on the item’s page, change the Status cell in a List or Table, or drag the card on a board. If the workflow doesn’t allow the move, or the target column is at a blocking WIP limit, the change is undone and a message explains why. Every status change is recorded in the item’s History.

Set dates#

Set Start and Due on the item’s page, or in the Start and Due columns of a List or Table. Clear a date on the item’s page by emptying the field. An item whose due date has passed shows an overdue marker in List and Table views, and appears under Overdue in My Work if it’s assigned to you.

Change the type#

The item’s page has no type picker. To change an item’s type, open the project’s Board, set Swimlanes to Type, and drag the card into the lane for the type you want. The item keeps its key, status, assignee, comments and history.

Change many items at once#

Switch the project to Table
Bulk actions are available in the Table view.
Select rows
Tick the checkbox at the start of each row. Tick the header checkbox to select every loaded row. With a cell focused, Space toggles that row.
Choose an action in the bar at the bottom
Set status…, Set priority…, Assign to… (including Nobody (unassign)), a Due date, or Archive. The change runs as soon as you pick a value. Select Clear to deselect.
Check the result
A message says how many items were updated. If some were refused, for example because the workflow doesn’t allow that status from where they are, the bar lists them with the reason. The others are still changed.

Note

Selections of more than 50 items are queued and run in the background. You’ll see “N items queued — running now”, then the result once it finishes.

Archive and restore an item#

There’s no permanent delete for work items. On the item’s page, select Archive. The item disappears from views, but nothing is deleted: its key, comments and history stay, and a direct link still opens it. To bring it back, open the item and select Restore. You can also archive several items at once from the Table’s bulk bar. Both need work_item.delete.

Moving items between projects#

An item stays in the project it was created in. There’s no way to move it to another project. If work really belongs elsewhere, create a new item there (or duplicate this one and archive the original) and link the two with a Relates to dependency.

FAQ#

Is there a “High” priority?

No. The priorities are none, low, normal and urgent.

My new item didn’t land in the column I expected.

Items created from the New item dialog start in the project’s first status. To create one in a specific column, use + Add at the bottom of that column on the Board.

The bulk change says some items were refused.

Each refused item is listed with its reason, usually a status move the workflow doesn’t allow from that item’s current status. The items that could change did.

Can I get an archived item back?

Yes. Open it from a link, My Work or search, and select Restore on its page.

Why can’t I change anything on an item?

Editing needs work_item.manage. Without it, the fields are read-only.

Still stuck? Search the docs with ⌘K, open Help inside UnitX, or contact support.