The responsible party indicates who is responsible for the work. The due date indicates when the work must be completed. Working times allocated to users, the task’s Estimated working time and actual work hour logs are separate pieces of information. The responsible party alone also does not indicate who has started the work.

Before making changes

You need permission to edit the relevant task details. The users and roles available when selecting responsible parties depend on your access permissions. If you cannot see the current responsible party, clarify this with your administrator before changing responsibility.

A task must have a responsible party and a due date unless it is a draft. You can save a draft without these details, but you must fill them in before starting work. You cannot change the due date of a saved contract task.

Choose the appropriate assignment method

  • Attach for users: select one or more users. The selection does not follow subsequent changes to their role memberships. Each user needs at least one personal resourcing row.
  • Attach for the users of role: select one role that has users. Responsibility is assigned to all its members, and the task follows changes to the membership. Each member needs personal resourcing.
  • Attach for role: responsibility is assigned to one role. You cannot save personal resourcing for the task in this case. Use this when the work belongs to a group but working times for individual users are not yet being planned.

You cannot combine responsibility assigned directly to a role with responsibility assigned to users on the same task, or select multiple roles as directly responsible.

Set responsibility and the due date in the browser

  1. Open Tasks and open the task you want to change. Go to the Base details panel on the Basic info tab and its Responsibility and schedule section.
  2. Enter a date in the Choose a due date field.
  3. Open Choose a responsible party. Select the assignment method you want from the window’s tabs, assign the users or role, and check the selected responsible parties in the window. Confirm with the Choose a responsible party button.
  4. Selecting user responsibility opens resourcing planning. You can also open it with the Open planning button in the same section. In the Resourcing and planned working hours window, check each user’s rows. Click the Start and End times to change them. The end must be after the start, and the time intervals for the same user on this task must not overlap.
  5. Accept the resourcing with the window’s Save and close button. This returns the plan to the task form; you must still save the task itself with the Save or Save and close button at the bottom of the form.

In resourcing, you can add work periods with the plus button in the table’s Copy the row column. You cannot separately delete a user’s last resourcing entry in a way that would leave the user as a responsible party on the task without any working time.

Where do the default times and hour totals come from?

The initial values for missing resourcing entries come from the service’s default resourcing. The initial default is 08:00–09:00 on the due date, but your service may use a different time and duration. If there is no due date, the current date is used as the initial date.

For default resourcing created in the background, the start date is calculated by subtracting the configured number of advance days from the due date. The start is set to the default time, and the duration in minutes is added to calculate the end. However, new user rows prefilled in the browser’s planning window use the due date as it is, without subtracting advance days. Always check the dates shown; the default does not guarantee that the work is scheduled before the due date.

Resourced hours is the sum of the durations of all resourcing rows for all users on the task. For example, two users working from 08:00 to 09:00 produce a total of two resourced hours, even though the shared calendar period lasts one hour. The duration is saved in whole minutes; any partial minutes are discarded. Estimated working time is a separate estimate for the task, and resourcing is not an actual work hour log.

What happens when responsibility or the due date changes?

Removing a user from the responsible parties also removes their resourcing for this task. Switching from user responsibility to responsibility assigned directly to a role removes personal planned times. Changing responsibility does not itself change the task’s work hour logs.

When a task follows a role’s users, membership changes are processed in the background. New members receive resourcing based on the service defaults, and departing members’ assignments and resourcing are removed. Completed tasks are skipped when the role’s member list is updated. However, an update triggered by changes to a user account’s roles may also affect completed tasks. Do not assume that completing a task locks its responsibility details against all membership changes.

Changing the due date alone does not move resourcing times that have already been saved. The status of an open or overdue task is recalculated when saving: the task is overdue if its due date is before the start of the current day in the service’s time zone. A due date of today does not yet make it overdue. The change does not itself start or finish the work.

To start work, use the Start to process or Responsible starts to process button at the bottom of the task form. The first records the current user as the person who started the work. The second uses the sole selected user or opens a performer selection if there are multiple users or responsibility belongs to a role. For a role, an individual member is selected. Starting changes the task to in progress and records who started it and the start time.

Changes to multiple tasks are described in Bulk editing and deleting tasks. Do not rely on the Keep resourcing option for bulk changes without checking each task: when multiple tasks are processed, previous times may be replaced with default times. To move the due date and resourcing together, use the instructions in Scheduling a task in the calendar.

Mobile permissions and use

In the browser, open the Mobile resourcing permissions panel in the Responsibility and schedule section described above. Each setting has a check mark to allow it and a cross to deny it:

  • Allow editing of own resourcing applies to the user’s own planned times.
  • Allow editing of all resources for the task also allows editing other users’ times.
  • Allow editing of due date controls due date editing.
  • Allow adding new users and removing own user from the task applies to responsibility assignments. It does not grant permission to remove other users’ assignments.

Permission is determined separately for each setting: first the task’s own setting, then the task template’s setting if the task has no setting, and finally the service setting. An explicit denial overrides permission granted at a more general level. All four permissions are disabled in the service’s initial defaults. Shared settings are described in Mobile visibility and defaults.

Android: open the task details and tap the Due date row. Editing requires the due date editing setting to be enabled, an editable task, and a task that is not completed. The picker allows today and future dates. Resourcing in the task details opens the Schedule for Task window for an unfinished task assigned to users. Change the permitted assignments or times and confirm with the window’s Save button.

iOS: open the task details. The edit button next to the due date, or tapping the date, opens a picker that allows today and future dates. Confirm the date with the Done button. Resourcing opens the personal working times window; the available editing actions depend on resourcing permissions. Resourcing editing is disabled in read-only mode and for completed tasks.

iOS may display due date editing even when its setting is disabled. A visible button therefore does not reliably indicate this permission. If changes to the due date need to be restricted, verify the behavior with your administrator. You cannot change a contract task’s due date on either platform.

On mobile, you cannot switch responsibility assigned directly to a role to user responsibility by adding responsible parties. Change the assignment method in the browser. Permission to manage responsibility also does not override the requirement to follow all members of a role.

Check the saved result

Reopen the task and check the due date, assignment method, selected users or role, and each user’s resourcing dates and times. Separately check who started the work and the status if you started processing. After a role membership change or a bulk change, wait for background processing and refresh the details before checking. If a change is not saved or the details differ from the plan, clarify the permissions and task restrictions with your administrator.