Customize task progress and priority options

[DeannaPM]

Hi Planner Team!  Thanks for the Q&A session today.  Are there any plans for the ability to customize/modify or add to the options for "Progress" and "Priority" on tasks?  For example, I would love to have a "Canceled" option for task progress... Right now, if we cancel a task for some reason, I either have to mark it as "complete", or delete it -- neither of which is ideal. We don't want to delete tasks, as there is no archive, and we want a record/history of why we canceled the task.  Currently my work-around is to either add "(Canceled)" at the beginning of the task title, and mark it as complete -- or move it to a bucket called "Canceled Tasks". 

[#2]

Thanks for sharing your ask! May I try to understand your ask a bit more, what actions would you perform after marking it "Canceled"? Your work-around sounds pretty good. We have also seen users use labels for customized status, and users use a dedicated bucket for customized status, sharing in case that's helpful.

[#3]

I like the cancel idea too. I tend to just delete them or move to complete. A "canceled" options would be great. A work around is to have a "canceled" bucket - but that depends on your workflow and harder to digest in PowerBI - if you connect the two.

[#4]

@Si Meng: I can't think of any actions I'd perform after marking it as canceled... We just need a way to retain the task for historical reference ("we thought we needed to do this, but for these reasons we determined it was not necessary and canceled the task... or it was replaced with a different task, etc.") I'd prefer NOT to mark it as "completed", since it wasn't actually completed; and I'd prefer not to move it to another bucket, as I'd like it to be seen/referenced in the bucket where it was assigned. Hope that helps!

[#5]

Got it. Thanks for sharing the ask and your work-around!

[#6]

I really would like to be able to customize the progress as well.

ATM we are using buckets (Backlog, To do, Doing, Done), but it does not track the time, so we have to update both progress and bucket. A "Canceled" would be great as well.

[#7]

Got another vote from me! We have a similar workflow as the Backlog>Done/Cancelled and would like to modify as well. We'd also like to be able to sort (not just filter) by that progress field and create auto-created buckets based on the drop down selection from Progress

[#8]

I would like to add my vote to this! We are a game development studio and we have one more "progression" option for tasks - Ready For Testing, signalling to the QA team that a task is now being handed over to them. We use labels now as workaround but having the ability to customize the life cycle of a task would be very helpful.

As far as priorities go, we have need for a "Build Failure" or something similar that is highest priority of all etc.

[#9]

A "Pending" status would also be great for tasks that are waiting on another team's work to be done for completion.

[#10]

The following 3 additional status options would be great:

- Cancelled
- Pending
- Deferred

[#11]

I would like to be able to customize progress categories as well. In other PM tools I include a "Stalled" and "Pending" status as well. A "Stalled" - progress "Urgent" - priority task should set off the PM alarms!

I understand that having too many progress status categories can also become a challenge. I think that lends weight to the notion that it should be able to be customized to different workflows.

[#12]

@MichaelRestine indeed being able to customize Progress would be perfect. Meanwhile the standard options are missing two important generic categories “On Hold” and “Cancelled”.

We are an Industrial Manufacturer and these are frequent progress status with some tasks, specially if they depend on third parties or authority approvals.

[#13]

I'd also like to see "Blocked" because really - it's not in progress and it is not completed. Honestly, I'd like the opportunity to edit the Progress options myself, as each project I work with is a bit different.... If development we go through stages from Planned->In Progress->Ready for Testing->Ready for Acceptance->Ready for Deployment->Complete.

The current options creates very basic ability and it's a pick and choose if we use Planner or not because of it.