Tasks

What is it?

Tasks are a project management feature that make achieving your compliance goals a lot easier.

Why are tasks important?

It’s common to feel overwhelmed when you first start any type of compliance program — we know that feeling all too well!

Tasks break the work down into small, actionable items that you and your team can tackle, and help you know what you need to do to keep your program in great shape.

One of the biggest challenges to achieving compliance is knowing where to get started, and what to do next. To help you prioritize, TrustOps divides your tasks into two lists: Now and Later. You’ll learn more about these below.

Each night, TrustOps scans your compliance program and determines which tasks have the highest priority. It uses this information to reorganize your tasks, so that when you start your day, you can get a clear idea of what you should work on next. To make prioritization decisions, TrustOps considers a task’s due date, the classification of the system related to a failing test, as well as other factors. At the same time, we know that as the task owner, you know best when to tackle each task, and we give you an easy way to manually move tasks between your Now and Later lists.

In addition to the Now and Later views available to everyone, administrators also have access to an All Tasks view, which allows them to see and modify tasks across the entire organization, rather than just their own.

Task buckets

Now

(Items that you should focus on next)

The Now tab is your immediate to-do list. Tasks in this list may have pending due dates or impact high-risk data.

You can begin working on a task by expanding the task, then clicking on the “Begin Task” action, which will lead you to the relevant page in TrustOps. If you feel that one of these tasks does not need your immediate attention, you can reschedule it for a later time: find the “Snooze Until” option  in the overflow/ellipsis menu (…) at the top right corner of the expanded task, and choose a date. The task will remain in your Later list until that date.

• To make your task list more approachable, you can filter your tasks by various categories.
  • You can use the search bar at the top of the page to find all tasks matching a particular keyword.
  • You can filter the list to find only tasks due in the next week, month, or six months.
  • Each task belongs to one of your TrustOps groups, and you can filter the list to show only a specific set of  groups (DevOps, Engineering, HR, etc).
  • You can filter the list by the type of task: Testing, Evidence, Onboarding, etc.
• Once you’ve selected the filters you’d like to apply, they will show up at the top of the screen. Simply select the x next to a filter to remove it, or select Clear All to remove all filters applied.

Later

(Items that will need your attention soon)

The Later tab shows you tasks that are assigned to you, but are not considered high-priority. You can browse these tasks to get a sense of what will be on your plate soon, and can immediately begin work on any task by clicking  its “begin task” button..

You can also choose to reprioritize any task, and move it from the Later list to your immediate to-do list by clicking  the “Move to Now” option in the overflow/ellipsis menu (…) at the top right corner of the expanded task.

• To make your task list more approachable, you can filter your tasks by various categories.
  • You can use the search bar at the top of the page to find all tasks matching a particular keyword.
  • You can filter the list to find only tasks due in the next week, month, or six months.
  • Each task belongs to one of your TrustOps groups, and you can filter the list to show only a specific set of by groups (DevOps, Engineering, HR, etc).
  • You can filter the list by the type of task: Testing, Evidence, Onboarding, etc.
• Once you’ve selected the filters you’d like to apply, they will show up at the top of the screen. Simply select the x next to a filter to remove it, or select Clear All to remove all filters applied.

All Tasks

(Items belonging to the entire team)

Admin users need to be able to oversee the progress of the overall team. The All Tasks tab, which is only visible to these users, shows tasks across the entire team, and can be used to assign or prioritize tasks.

• To make the All Tasks list more approachable, you can filter your tasks by various categories.
  • You can use the search bar at the top of the page to find all tasks matching a particular keyword.
  • You can filter the list to find only tasks due in the next week, month, or six months.
  • Each task belongs to one of your TrustOps groups, and you can filter the list to show only a specific set of by groups (DevOps, Engineering, HR, etc).
  • You can filter the list by the type of task: Testing, Evidence, Onboarding, etc.
  • You can filter the list by task status (open, resolved, dismissed).
  • You can filter the list by task priority (now, later).
  • You can filter the list by assignee to view tasks assigned to a specific team member.
• Once you’ve selected the filters you’d like to apply, they will show up at the top of the screen. Simply select the x next to a filter to remove it, or select Clear All to remove all filters applied.

About tasks

What happens once a task is completed?

Once you finish a task, it will automatically complete, and you will no longer see it in your tasks list. Each day, you can see tasks you completed that day at the bottom of the Now tab.

Adding notes

Whether you want to keep track of where you are on a particular task, or want to let other members of the team into your thought process, task notes are a helpful tool.

To add a note to any task you own (or any task at all, if you’re an admin), simply expand a task, and click the “+ Add a Note” button. Your note will be dated and added to the task, visible to anyone with access to that task.

External ticket links

While TrustOps handles all of your compliance needs, many teams use project management tools to track their day-to-day work. If you’re planning to use Jira, Shortcut, or any other tool to log your work via tickets, you can link externally-created tickets to your tasks to keep track of everything in motion.

To add an external ticket link, expand then edit a task by clicking the pencil button, and paste your link in the “External Ticket” field. Once you’ve added links, your external tickets will be visible (and clickable) even in the minimal task list view.

Viewing related tasks

When you’re looking at a particular task, it can be helpful to know which of your other tasks relate to the same control or system, in order to get a better sense of everything you still have to do.

When some of your tasks are related to one another, you’ll see a “Related Tasks” section in your expanded task view. You’ll be able to click through to any of them to see more information.

The persistent task list

Tasks help you figure out what to do next, and that’s information you should always have within reach. The persistent task button follows you around TrustOps and gives you easy access to your to-do list — your Now tasks.

You’ll find the button floating at the bottom-right side of your screen whenever you browse TrustOps (we’ll only hide it when you navigate to any of the tasks pages).

Clicking this button will open your Now tasks panel. You can click on any of your tasks to be taken directly to the relevant TrustOps page.

In addition to your Now tasks, the persistent task list includes a Related Tasks tab. This tab will show you any of your tasks that are related to the TrustOps page you’re in, regardless of whether they’re in your Now or Later list – just so you’re aware of relevant open items that will eventually need your attention.