When adding or editing a task, there is now a “Repeats” tab available to you once you click the “more” link. The “more” link allows you to show or hide advanced task features per project.

Let’s take an example where we want Ben to check that database backups are working perfectly every Friday. To create the weekly task, we just set-up the first task as normal – assigned to Ben and due next Friday  – then select “Weekly” from the repeats tab and click “Add task”. Here is the process step by step:   Step 1 – Just set-up the task as normal, set the first due date Step 2 – Find the repeats tab (look under “more”) Step 3 – Select “Weekly” for “Does this task repeat?” Step 4 – You can preview the due dates (optional) Step 5 – Click “Add task” and your task will display as normal, but with a “Recurring Task” icon on the right. Hovering over this icon will show you all the upcoming due dates for this task.

In the example above, let’s suppose that Ben is out on annual leave and so you need to get somebody to cover for him. You can do this by clicking the “+” icon to create an instance right now. This is useful if you need to make changes, attach files or comments to the task for a particular date. In this example, if Ben was on holidays we could assign the task to Fiona to cover for him.

You can setup the backup to repeat using any of the following frequencies:

  • Daily

  • Every Weekday (Mon-Fri)

  • On Selected Days… (pick the days)

  • Weekly

  • Every 2 weeks

  • Monthly (you can select either on the same day of the month or a given day of the week within the month (eg. 3rd Friday of the month)

  • Yearly

  In its first iteration, we created hundreds of recurring tasks straight away with the various dates. Our beta testers said that this approach was “unusable”.   We went back to the drawing board and thought long and hard about the best way to make this work. We talked about adding a filter to the view, but then we felt that was just too messy and could cause confusion. In the end, we now create the next task when the current task is completed, but also allow a user to create any of the future instances of a task as needed. We feel that this approach is much more usable and straightforward while catering for all business cases.   One of our beta testers said: “Much better than the previous version, and the design of the interface is very beautiful. Kudos!”   We would like to thank all out beta testers for their valuable input.

This feature is already enabled in your Teamwork Projects account. Give it a go and let us know what you think. If you like this feature, please share the love in the comments below and on Twitter @teamwork.