Facilitate collaboration by assigning tasks in Word

(Originally published on September 21, 2022 by Rubba Ashwas )

Hi, Insiders! My name is Rubba Ashwas and I’m a Product Manager on the Word team. I’m excited to share that you can now assign tasks with @mentions in documents in Word for Windows and Word for Mac!

Assign tasks in Word

This feature allows you and your team to conveniently create and assign tasks directly from within your Word document using @mentions in comments. The people you assign tasks to will receive email notifications letting them know they need to take action.

Many of you have enjoyed using the feature in Word for the web. We’re thrilled to now be bringing it to Word for Windows and Word for Mac.

How it works

1. Open an existing document saved to OneDrive or SharePoint.
2. Highlight the text that contains the information you want to comment on and select the New Comment button.

   New Comment button

3. Write your comment and type @ followed by the name of the team member you want to tag.
4. Select the Assign to check box to convert your comment into a task.
5. Click the blue arrow or press Ctrl + Enter to post your comment.

   Comment in Word with @ mention and Assign to check box selected

Scenarios to try

• Reassign a task: Type @followed by the name of the team member you want to reassign the task to in the response field, select the Reassign to check box, and then click the blue arrow or press Ctrl + Enter. The person to whom you reassigned the task will be notified via email that they’ve been assigned the task.

  Task with the Reassign to check box selected

• Resolve a task: Hover over the circle at the top of the comment and click the Resolve task button.

  Resolved task

• Reopen a resolved task: In the right-hand margin or in Comments pane, click the comment that was closed, and then click the Reopen button.

  Comment with a Task completed flag

Availability

This feature is available in Word for the Web, and to Insiders running the following Beta Channel builds:

• Windows: Version 2206 (Build 15321.10000) or later
• Mac: Version 16.66 (Build 22090700) or later 

Features are released over some time to ensure things are working smoothly. We highlight features that you may not have because they’re slowly releasing to larger numbers of Insiders. Sometimes we remove elements to further improve them based on your feedback. Though this is rare, we also reserve the option to pull a feature entirely out of the product, even if you, as an Insider, have had the opportunity to try it. 

Feedback

We are actively working on this feature, and your feedback is key to guiding future improvements. You can submit comments by clicking Help > Feedback in Word. Please tag your feedback with #AssignTasks so that we can easily find input about the feature.

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