RefractTrack Tasks
Tasks
A task is the basic unit of work in RefractTrack — a single feature, fix, art request, or to-do, always living inside one Project and identified by a short code like RPG-12.
What's on a task
- Title and Description — the description supports light text formatting, so you can bold, italicize, list, and add code snippets.
- Type — either a regular task or a Bug.
- Priority — Low, Medium, High, or Critical.
- Stage — which column the task currently sits in on the board. See Stages.
- Assignee — who's working on it. Optional, unless the column it's in requires one.
- Due date — optional.
- Groups — any number of color-coded tags. See Groups.
- Review status — whether it's still pending sign-off, approved, or marked "won't do." See Approvals and Review.
- Archived — whether it's been tucked away off the active board. See Archiving.
Bug reports get extra fields
Switch a task's Type to Bug and three extra fields appear: Expected behavior, Actual behavior, and Steps to reproduce. They show up on the task detail page in their own dedicated panel, and they're also available as fill-in-the-blank templates when creating a batch of bug reports at once (see Bulk Task Creation).
Task codes link themselves
Mention a task code like FE-12 anywhere formatted text appears — a description, a comment, another task — and RefractTrack automatically turns it into a clickable link to that task, as long as it's a real task and you're allowed to see it. No extra steps needed.
Creating tasks
There are a few ways to add a task, depending on who's adding it and how much detail they need to provide:
- The full task form — the everyday way to create a task. New tasks always start out in the project's first column, unassigned; once it exists, you can move it and assign it from its own detail page.
- The reporter form — a stripped-down "submit a ticket" form for teammates (like playtesters or QA) who should be able to flag something without full access to the board. Tickets submitted this way land automatically in a review queue rather than straight onto the board, unassigned, at Medium priority. Anyone who can use this form also gets their own My Reports page, listing everything they've personally submitted and where each one currently stands — handy for following up without needing board access.
- Bulk create — for generating a whole batch of similar tasks at once. See Bulk Task Creation.
- Clone — duplicate any existing task as a starting point for a new one.
Editing and moving tasks
You can move a task between columns from its detail page, from the edit form, or simply by dragging it across the board — see Board and List Views. If the column you're moving it into is one that requires an assignee (In Progress and In Review, by default), you'll be asked to pick one first.
If two people edit a task at the same time
On a busy team, it's normal for two people to open the same task at once — say, one person updates the description while someone else moves it to a new stage. RefractTrack is built to handle this gracefully: as long as you're not both changing the exact same thing, everyone's changes are saved, no matter who clicked save first.
The only time RefractTrack has to make a judgment call is if you both change the same field to two different values at nearly the same moment. When that happens, it keeps whichever change was saved first, and adds a friendly note to the task's Activity tab so the other person can see what happened and reapply their change if they still want it. Nothing is ever silently thrown away, and you'll never see a confusing "conflict" screen or be asked to manually merge anything.
Deleting tasks
Deleting a task removes it for good — a quiet backup record is kept behind the scenes for audit purposes even after it's gone from the board, but there's no everyday "undo." If you just want to clear finished or abandoned work off the board without losing it, Archiving is almost always the better choice.