A little start-up help for your first business project in MeisterTask

Today, I'd like to show you how to create your first business project in MeisterTask in just a few steps. The steps are logically based on each other and as soon as you have learned them, you will be able to do it more and more quickly.

Hier geht es zum Beitrag auf Deutsch.

Let's start with a first look at the template

You see eight sections in this project, that help you coordinate the tasks of your daily business work very easy and with a nice overview:

Idea | Planned

In this section, you can add ideas for marketing campaigns, new innovations and anything else you think of for the further development of your business as a new task. Creating a new task is very easy, and formatting the text in it will soon become second nature to you.

Even if you are planning something new, this is the right place for it. This way, everything stays neatly arranged and compact, and you can access it from anywhere.

When your ideas or plans become more concrete, you can also make a first time planning in this section.

Requests

All enquiries from your stakeholders will be added to this section. If you receive a telephone enquiry, for example, you can create a new task here and enter the relevant information and requests.

In this section, we also start to work with tags. I have already defined the tags that are suitable for this project board at the beginning. By the way, the tags "Idea" and "Planned" are the only ones that are inserted manually in the tasks:

Tags appear very harmless, but they have a lot going for them. In combination with the filter function, they help us to sort tasks quickly and effectively according to their assignments and properties. In this way, we keep an overview when there is more going on at the project board.

Now it's time for the first automation 😉

I have created an automation to add the tag "Request" and an automation to remove the tags that are not applicable for this section.

If you also want to receive requests from incoming e-mails or from a contact form on your website in this section, you can use the mail address generated by MeisterTask, which is displayed at the bottom of the automation settings, for this purpose.

In progress

In this section, you can drag and drop all the tasks you currently want to work on. If you would like to document the time spent on this task, you can optionally use the Time tracking automation here.

The automations inserted in this column again refer to tags:

I have created an automation to add the tag "In progress" and an automation to remove the tags that are not applicable for this section. In the upper right corner of this section, you can see the (1/5) so called WIP (work in progress) limitation.

WIP limitation is a MeisterTask Pro feature:

Paused

As soon as you have to pause a task or interrupt it for an important reason, you drag the corresponding tasks into this column. The corresponding tags are then also automatically set and removed here.

It is also important to note here, that a time tracking, activated in the "In progress" section, must be stopped in this (and all other sections) either manually or by a corresponding automation. Otherwise, the time tracking continues merrily 😋

Review

In this column, we drag tasks that have been worked through and still have to be approved. Or, when they have to be subjected to an intermediate check.

Automations are also inserted here again. The tags are exchanged and now, attention, a new automation enters the stage.

We let MeisterTask insert a predefined "checklist" (template) into each task, which is dragged into this section.

Invoicing

Here, we come to a very nice section. Invoicing is pending because our order has (hopefully) been fulfilled satisfyingly. Now, for example, an automated assignment could also be made to a team member who is responsible for invoicing. If we work with an external accounting department, an automated  e-mail is also possible.

I have created an automation to add the tag "Invoicing" and an automation to remove the tags that are not applicable for this section. And I have assigned the task to myself in this project board.

Complaints

Should there ever be a complaint after invoicing or during a work process, the corresponding task is moved to this section until everything has been satisfyingly resolved.

At this point, by the way, we particularly benefit from the possibility of attaching files into tasks. For example, photos of the complained work, documents and other evidence can be inserted. This is particularly useful when teams are working externally and want to keep the office informed of progress and news in real time.

After that, the workflow can be continued again.

I have created an automation to add the tag "Complaints" and an automation to remove the tags that are not applicable for this section.

Done

When the task has been completed, reviewed, accepted and also paid for, it can be moved to the "Done" section.

I have created an automation to add the tag "Success" and an automation to remove the tags that are not applicable for this section. And I have added the automation “Update Status” to “Complete”. You can find more information about the feature Completion and Archiving here.

An advanced function for all those who use MeisterTask as a business version

MeisterTask allows you to define the query of organisation-specific information with the function "Custom fields".

For example, you can create a field for entering the customer ID, a pre-selection for the responsible department, input fields for telephone numbers, etc.

I'd like to share the template for this project board with you.

To make it a little easier for you to get started with professional task and project management in MeisterTask, I have made the template for this project board available to you as a download. Have fun trying it out and testing it.

But most of all, I hope you have fun creatively developing your own projects 😉

If you like, you can also take a closer look at my post about how to start projects in MeisterTask and to avoid common mistakes in the beginning practice with MeisterTask.

Best, Jörg