ANTE User ManualTask Management FAQ
Short answers to the questions people ask most often when they start using tasks in ANTE — how work gets created and handed over, what the board columns and tabs actually mean, and how to recover something you thought you had lost. Each answer links to the page that covers the topic in full.
Creating and Assigning Work
How do I create a task?
Use the floating + button in the bottom-right corner of the screen and choose New Task, or press the N key. Only the Task name is required — click More options to add a description, priority, due date, project, and assignees before saving. If you leave the assignees blank the task stays with you and appears under your Tasks tab. Full steps are on the Tasks overview.
Press Shift+N to open the same form with the assignee picker already expanded, so you can create and delegate in one step.
What is the difference between an assignee and a collaborator?
An assignee is the person responsible for doing the work — the task counts towards their active Tasks tab and shows their name in the Assignee column. A collaborator is someone kept in the loop who is not accountable for finishing it; those tasks gather under the Collaborate tab instead. Both are set from the task detail panel, and you can have several of each. See Tasks for the full list of tabs and fields.
I handed a task to someone else — where do I follow it up?
On the Assigned tab of the Tasks page. A task appears there when you created it, it is assigned to at least one other person, and it is still open — so the tab badge is a live count of everything you are waiting on. Once the task reaches a closed status it drops off the tab. To hand it to someone else again, open the task and edit the Assignee field; the change saves immediately. See Assigned Tasks.
Can I move a task into a different project?
Yes. Project is the first field in the task detail panel — click it, pick the destination project (or No project (personal task) to detach it), and a confirmation dialog spells out exactly what will happen before anything changes: which column the task lands in, how many subtasks travel with it, and which milestone, team roles, cross-project dependencies, and custom field values will be cleared. Assignees, dates, description, checklists, attachments, comments, and the task number are always kept. You can only move a task into a project you belong to, and tasks driven by a workflow keep a locked Project field. See Moving a Task to Another Project.
Statuses, Boards, and Deadlines
Why do my board columns look different from a teammate's?
Because the columns are not fixed — they are the statuses (board lanes) configured for each project, so every project can rename, recolor, reorder, and add its own stages from the project's Statuses settings. Each status carries a type — Open for a starting stage, Active for work in progress, and Closed for finished work, which always sits at the end of the board. See Managing the Columns.
How do I move a task through its stages?
Three ways, all equivalent: drag the card to another column in Board view, right-click the row in Table view and pick Mark In Progress, Mark as Done, or Move to Backlog, or open the task and use its status action buttons. If you move a task into a Closed stage while it still has unfinished dependencies, checklist items, or subtasks, a Complete Task? confirmation lists what is outstanding so you can decide whether to Complete Anyway.
How do I see what is overdue or due this week?
Open the Due Date filter on the Tasks page and choose Overdue, Due Today, Due This Week, Due Next Week, or No Due Date. The Overdue counter card at the top of the page gives you the total at a glance, and due dates are colored in the table — red once a task is past due, highlighted when it falls due today or tomorrow. Deadlines themselves are changed inside the task, not from the list. See Due Tasks.
Review, Approval, and Pausing
How do I send work for review, and what happens next?
Open the task and choose Send for Review. It moves to the reviewer's Review tab, where the Submitted By column shows who sent it. The reviewer either accepts it with Set Complete or returns it with Reject — and rejecting requires a written reason, which is shown to you so you know what to fix. See Approval and Review Tasks.
Why does one task show Approve and Send Back, and another Set Complete and Reject?
It depends on how the task reached you. A task a colleague finished and submitted with Send for Review is a standard review, so you see Set Complete and Reject. A task generated by a workflow — a Process or Order Fulfillment step, recognizable by its bracketed reference code — needs your sign-off to advance, so you see Approve and Send Back. Send Back is only offered on approval steps, and never on a workflow's first step, because a plain action step can only move the workflow forward.
A task is blocked — should I pause it or leave it in my list?
Pause it. Pausing takes the task out of your active list without completing or deleting it, and records why it is on hold plus how long it has been there. Choose Pause Task to set a duration (1 day up to 2 weeks, a custom number of days, or Indefinite) with a reason, or use Quick Pause (1 day) to stop now and explain later — those tasks are flagged Reason pending until you fill it in. Everything sits on the Paused tab with its Reason and Paused For duration, and each task keeps a full pause history. See Paused Tasks.
Time, Recovery, and Bulk Loading
How do I record time against a task?
Every task detail panel has its own timer button in the header. Clicking it starts the Time Tracker on that task, and if the task had not been started yet it also moves it to In Progress. If the tracker is already running on a different task, clicking here switches to this one rather than ending your session, so a single working session can cover as many tasks as you move between. Once time has been logged, a Time Tracked section lists the running session and past sessions, and every start, stop, and switch is posted to the task's Activity feed. See Tracking Time on a Task.
If your company requires a face photo to clock in, start from the Time Tracker widget on the Dashboard instead — the task header has no camera step and will show an error.
I archived a task by mistake — can I get it back?
Yes. Open the Archived tab on the Tasks page and click Restore on the row; the task returns to your active lists exactly as it was. The tab lists only tasks you created, and archiving itself is done by right-clicking a row and choosing Archive. See Archived Tasks.
Delete is not the same as Archive. Deleting asks you to confirm and then removes the task permanently — there is no way to bring it back. If there is any chance you will need the task again, archive it instead.
Can I create a whole list of tasks at once instead of typing them one by one?
Yes, from inside a project's task list — click Import Tasks in the view header and upload an Excel or CSV file. Start with Download Template so the columns are right; only Task Name is required, and rows without one are skipped. The wizard matches assignees, milestones, and team roles to the project's records and highlights anything it could not match so you can pick the right value — anything you leave unmatched is simply skipped, and the task is still created. To load subtasks, put the parent task's exact name in the Parent Task column. See Import Tasks.
Can I finish my tasks from my phone?
Mostly. The mobile task screen puts the next action on the first card — it shows Start task, Mark done (with a Pause button beside it), or Resume depending on where the task stands, and you can read the description, comment, mention colleagues, and add notes. Checklists are read-only on a phone, and a task that is a workflow or approval step asks you to open it on a computer because completing it needs a form the mobile app cannot show. See Tasks on Mobile.
Related Pages
- Tasks overview — the full guide to the Tasks page, its tabs, filters, and actions
- All Tasks — the unified list of project, process, and standalone work
- Done Tasks — reviewing and re-opening completed work
- Processes — where workflow and approval tasks come from