0040 Basic - The concept of status in ClickUp. Part 1

Ernesto Mendez

May 30, 2022 • 7 min read

Hello ClickUp enthusiast! Greetings Ernesto.

Each of the tasks in a list must be assigned a status. Statuses represent the different stages or phases a task goes through in a workflow. Its origin is the well-known Kanban method in which a workflow is represented on a board, originally devised by the Toyota company and now commonly used in the "Agile" methodology.

Regardless of whether we use an "Agile" methodology or not to manage a project, in ClickUp the task lists must be assigned a set or series of states. The states or phases that a task goes through depend on the flow that we want to implement to control and manage the tasks within a list in the best possible way. It is important to note that all tasks in a list have the same set of states, states are set at the list level and assigned to each of the tasks within the list.

A simple set of states that can be assigned to a list can contain the following states:

To do
In progress
Done

In this way I can easily know which tasks are "to be done", which of them are "in progress" and which are already "done". It is a very simple and convenient way to manage the work of a team or an individual.

Depending on the type of tasks and the process that I want to manage or control, I must select the set of states to use.

ClickUp has preset several sets of statuses that can be assigned to a list or you can create your own set of statuses with which you want to manage your list. You can even add your own set of states to the group of presets.

An important lesson within ClickUp follows from here, as far as possible it is very convenient to use the same set of states for all the lists. Of course, there may be exceptions due to a very particular process that requires a specific flow, but for all other task lists, consistently using the same set of statuses is essential to be able to visualize and report all projects (different task lists ) consistently. Likewise, it is convenient to keep the set of states with the minimum number of them, it does not make sense to create a state that will practically never be used or that can even be replaced by some other existing state, the fewer states the better.

As we have already mentioned, statuses are assigned at the task list level. However, when a new task list is created, it can inherit the state set associated with the "Space" or "Folder" that contains it, and can even inherit the state set of either. another existing task list. Using the to-do list we created in the previous blog (Business Trip) as an example, in order to review or modify the list's status set, you can either click on the three dots to the right of the list name on the left sidebar or in the three dots to the right of the name of the list at the top of the screen as shown in the following two images:

When selecting the "List Statuses" option, a screen similar to the following will be displayed: (it may vary depending on the personal configuration of ClickUp)

In this case, it is shown that the list is making use of the set of states determined at the space level (Use Space statuses) and the states available in this set are: "TO DO" (TO DO) and "COMPLETED" (COMPLETE). ClickUp always uses capital letters for state names.

Select the "Custom" option and a series of different sets of available states will be displayed as shown below: (the list may vary depending on the sets you have added)

We'll stop at this screen to explain some important features about state sets.

By default, the status set is divided into three sections:

"Active statuses"
Done statuses
"Closed Statuses"

There is a fourth section that can be configured through what is known as ClickApps: "Not started statuses". We will see this in detail in a future installment. If it appears in your list of sections, you can safely continue reading, leaving that section empty for now.

ClickUp treats tasks differently depending on the section to which the status belongs, so it is important to create or manage statuses paying special attention to the section to which it is assigned. It is not necessary to have statuses in each of the sections, in general, you have statuses in the "Active" section and in the "Closed" section, leaving the "Done" section empty. The "Active" section must have at least one state, this is a ClickUp restriction.

The most important section is the "Active States" section, normally here all the states through which we want our tasks to go step by step are grouped and they are listed in order from top to bottom. The tasks will "jump" from one state to another as they advance in the process, but it could be that from a low state they jump back to a previous state and continue their cycle from there until a time comes when we consider them "closed". " in which case they will go to a state in the "Closed States" section with which the task is considered finished. Normally in this last section of "Closed States" we have a single state that is commonly called "CLOSED" or "COMPLETED" depending on how we decide to identify the final state of our process or flow. We've skipped the middle "States Done" section for the time being, now we're back to it. For now we have talked about the two most important sections in a set of states: "Active States" and "Closed States".

Let's see an example among the several that ClickUp offers by default, select the set of states "Content" (Content) as shown in the following image:

This set of states is designed for a process in which you want to write an article or a message on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook for example.

Let's review the states in the assets section that ClickUp has determined for this set of states and try to explain what each of them consists of.

"Open" (Open). This is the first stage of the process, it refers to the topic that the article or message is going to deal with. I can have multiple tasks on my list with this status that represent different topics I might write about.
"Ready" It refers to the tasks that have been assigned to a person in charge, but that have not yet started the writing process of the topic in question. The writer in question could have several assigned tasks and will select one by one to develop the content that has been requested.
"Writing" (Writing). When the assigned person has decided to start writing work on one of their topics, they will use this status to indicate that they are writing about it. It could be that a very experienced writer has two or more tasks in this state which would mean that he is writing on two or more topics at the same time.
"Approval" (Approval). When the writer has finished his work, he will assign this state for which there will surely be someone responsible for approving the written content.
"Rejected" (Rejected). If the approver has found that the article or message requires changes or modifications, he will assign this status so that the original author, upon identifying that he has one of his tasks in this state, works on the adjustments or modifications, surely the approver added notes in the description of the assignment with your comments or suggestions so that the writer knows the reason why your writing was rejected.
"Published" (Published). If the post or post is approved, the approver will publish the post or post and change the status of the task to "Published" which will end the task cycle.

In this case, the set of statuses determined by ClickUp, I do not use the "Done" section - perhaps I could have put the status "Published" in this section which would clearly indicate that the task has been successfully completed .

Note. This group of statuses can be edited by you if you wish and move the "Published" status to the "Done" section for clarity of your process.

Finally, the "Closed" section contains a single state that they called precisely "Cerrado" (Closed), in this state all the tasks that are considered closed will be found. During any stage of the process, it could be decided to "close" the task for any circumstance: the topic is obsolete or for some reason it was not completed or was included in another topic, in short, it could be closed for a variety of reasons, which is important to note is that to keep a better control of the projects or processes it is recommended not to delete the tasks but to mark them as closed or canceled (a status that could be added to this group) so that in this way a detailed control of each one is carried out. one of them.

In the next installment, we'll talk about how to edit a state set and how to create one from scratch.

Until next time and remember that the standardization of plans and processes does nothing more than improve the quality of the result and repeated iterations generate an upward spiral.