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0040 Basic - The concept of status in ClickUp - Part 2

Ernesto Mendez

• 6 min read
0040 Basic - The concept of status in ClickUp - Part 2
Photo by Mark König / Unsplash

Hello ClickUp enthusiast! Greetings from Ernesto.

Now that we've reviewed the basics of statuses sets and the interface that ClickUp uses to review, edit, or create them. We'll create one for our "Business Travel" list, this to-do list is generic; that is, it is not a specific process or anything like that, so the set of statuses that we will develop must be able to be applied to any generic task list like this one, in such a way that the same set of statuses can cover the need for a wide range of to-do lists. Using the same set of statuses for different lists allows me to consolidate, report and visualize all my task lists in a consistent and standardized way.

For example, we can use the following set of states for generic lists:

  • To do
  • In process
  • In Review
  • Suspended
  • Completed
  • Cancelled
  • Closed

It is a general set that can be applied to a wide range of task list types. Would there be any status that could be added at your discretion or based on your needs? If you think so, go ahead and add it!

It is important to keep in mind in which section each of the statuses are going to be added, remember that there are three basic sections: "Active" - "Done" - "Closed".

Which implies that the set of states would be configured as follows:

  • Active
  • To do
  • In process
  • In Review
  • Suspended
  • Done
  • Completed
  • Cancelled
  • Closed
  • Closed

To assign this set to our list, access the list status edition (see part 1 of this blog) and select the "Custom" option as shown in the following image:

The interface shows three statuses already defined, we are going to rename them and add the missing ones, but before that I would like to draw attention to the following important characteristic: any set of statuses must have at least two statuses, one must belong to the section "Active" and the other to the section "Closed". Notice on the screen that the first and last states ("TO DO" ​​and "COMPLETE") are "fixed" states that cannot be "dragged" to another section since they don't have the "drag" indicator like the status named "IN PROGRESS" - the drag indicator is the icon to the left of each status name represented by two vertical columns made up of dots. Likewise, these two states cannot be deleted like any of the other statuses in the set; in this way, ClickUp makes sure that the set of statuses has at least two statuses, one each in the "Active" and "Closed" sections.

Let's start by renaming the three existing statuses using the status names we've already prepared. To edit the name of a status, just click on the name and edit the label. Remember that ClickUp always uses capital letters for the names of the status. After renaming, the screen should look like the following image:

A color can be assigned to each status, which facilitates its identification, in some views (a topic that we will review in a future blog) the name of the status is not displayed as in the case of the view that we have seen so far used which is the "List" view where you can clearly see the statuses (as long as you select the option to group by status - which is the most common and the one used by default).

By clicking on the color to the left of the status name, you can select the color to use for the status:

Select the colors of your choice for each of the first two statuses on our set. It is recommended that you use colors that help identify the status of a task. The third status on our set, in the "Closed" section is the exception, this status cannot be changed in color, it is fixed on green. We will have to get used to identifying tasks in green as "Closed" tasks.

This is how my statuses have turned out after changing the colors:

To add the remaining states to our set, click the "+ Add Status" button found in the "Active" section, give it a name, and press the  or  key, for the status to be added and a new status tag will be presented so you can add another or click anywhere on the screen to display the "+ Add State" button again. When creating a new status, ClickUp assigns it a default color, later you can change the color as we have done before. Each new status you create can be dragged into the "Done" section or left in the "Active" section where it was created. The "Closed" section does not accept the addition of any more status.

Adding all the statuses of the set that we have determined, your screen should show something similar to the following:

To remove a status, you can click on the three dots to the right of the label, which will bring up a small menu where you will find the option to remove the state, along with the options to edit the label and change its color.

The name assigned to this set of statuses is "Custom", you can leave it with that name or create a new "Template" with a name of your choice, similar to the existing ones that are shown to the left of the interface: Project, Content, Kanban, Marketing, etc.

We will create a template that I will call "General" for which you have to click on the "+" sign to the right of the word "TEMPLATES (#)" (the number may vary depending on the existing templates) or on the label "+ New Template" at the bottom of the list. In any case, a space will be displayed for you to assign the name to your template and that for the moment says "Template Name":

Assign the name "Mainstream" and press  or  so that the name of the template is added to the list of templates and now shows selected at the top of the screen with the statuses that we have determined on the right side.

Click on the "Save" button at the bottom and your new set of statuses will be assigned to the "Business Trip" list and at the same time it will be stored as a template so that it can be used again in another list.

Finally, if we group our list by status (grouping by default), we will be able to see the list of tasks and the different statuses in which they can be found.

Make sure to group tasks by status:

And using the "Show" menu make sure that the "Empty statuses" option is activated:

So that the list of tasks is now displayed with all the statuses that we have created (although most of them are empty):

With this we finish the review of the status sets, I hope that now you have a clearer understanding of this concept and how they are created, edited and used in a task list.

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.