Adding and editing tasks

There are four ways.

Type it at the bottom of the list. Click Type here to add a task… under the last row, type the name and press Enter. The task goes at the end of the plan, and the empty row is ready for the next one. If you paste several lines of text here, one task is made for each line.

Add it below a row. Click a row, then click Add task on the ribbon (or Task › Add task). A task called New task appears just below the row you picked, at the same level, with its name ready to type over. If you picked a phase, the new task goes after everything in that phase.

Add it above a row. Click a row and press Insert (or Task › Insert task above). New task appears just above the row you picked, at the same level. If you picked a phase, it goes above the whole phase. This is the Insert key Microsoft Project uses.

Right-click a row and choose Add task or Insert task above. The same menu holds everything on the Task menu.

Every new task starts today and lasts one working day. Change its dates and duration as described in Dates and durations.

A milestone marks a moment, not a stretch of work. Examples are Permits approved and Handover.

• Click Add milestone on the ribbon or press Ctrl+Shift+M, or
• type 0 as the duration of an ordinary task, or
• tick This is a milestone in the task form.

A milestone is drawn as a diamond. To turn it back into a task, untick This is a milestone. It gets one day of work again.

Click the task’s name in the grid and start typing, or press F2 to edit the name you have. You can also click the selected name again, as you rename a file in Explorer or Finder: the name stays and the cursor goes to its end, so Backspace takes off a letter at a time. Press Enter when you are done. Press Esc to cancel.

Double-click a task’s name, or select the row and click Edit task (or press Shift+F2). The task form opens on the right.

Its sections are numbered in the pictures below, the top half of the form on the left and the bottom half on the right:

1. Estimated: name, start, end, duration, % complete, Done, priority, status and the bar’s colours.

2. Baseline: the dates the plan was agreed with. See Baselines.

3. Actual: when the work really happened. See Tracking progress.

4. Cost and work: see Costs and budget.

5. Custom columns: your own columns, when the plan has any. A link opens from here too. See Columns, sorting and filtering.

6. This is a milestone.

7. Notes: anything you want to remember about the task. Notes can be searched.

8. Assigned to: the people doing the work. See People and resources.

9. Calendar: which working days the task follows. See Working days and holidays.

10. Depends on: the tasks this one waits for. See Linking tasks.

A change is kept when you press Enter or click into another box. Enter also moves you on to the next box, as it does in Excel, with its contents selected so you can type straight over them; Shift+Enter moves back. If what you typed cannot be used, the reason shows under the box and you stay where you are to correct it. Press Esc in a box to put back what was there. Click Close when you are done. You can drag the form’s left edge to make it wider or narrower, and double-click that edge to put it back to its standard width.

Every task is High, Normal or Low priority. New tasks are Normal.

• Click the Priority cell and type h, n or l (the first letter is enough), or
• press Alt+Down in the cell to pick from a list, or
• use the Priority list in the task form.

Priorities are shown as coloured labels. They don’t change the dates. You can change their colours in Settings › Appearance › Task grid.

Select one or more rows and click Duplicate (or press Ctrl+D). The copy appears just below, named <name> (copy). If you copy a phase, everything inside it is copied too, along with the links between those tasks.

The copy does not take the original’s % complete, baseline or actual dates and costs.

Select one or more rows and click Delete on the ribbon (or Task › Delete, or press Ctrl+-).

If a row is a phase, everything inside it goes too. Desktop Plan asks first and says how many tasks and links will be removed.

• Shift+click another row, or hold Shift and press the up or down arrow, to select a block of rows.
• The status bar shows how many rows are selected.

Duplicate, Delete, Indent, Outdent, Move up and Move down all work on the whole selection.

To undo, press Ctrl+Z, or click the Undo arrow at the top left. Edit › Undo names the change it will undo, for example Undo: Change holidays. Press Ctrl+Y (or Ctrl+Shift+Z) to redo.

Each plan has its own undo history while it is open. The history is not saved in the file.