Tasks

What is a Task?

Tasks is a project management feature in TrustOps that helps you achieve organizational compliance goals easily. They systematically break down work into small, actionable items for you and your team to handle with ease, making your program manageable and keeping it that way.

Why are tasks important?

It is common to feel overwhelmed when you first start any type of compliance program.

One of the biggest challenges to achieving compliance is knowing where to get started and what to do next. To help you prioritize, TrustOps divides your tasks into two lists: Now list and the Later list. You will learn more about these in the following sections.

Each night, TrustOps scans your compliance program and determines high-priority tasks. It will reorganize the tasks to give you a clear picture of which tasks should be taken first. To make prioritization decisions, TrustOps considers a task’s due date, the classification of the system related to a failing test, and other factors. Also, TrustOps gives you the liberty to manually move tasks between the Now and Later lists.

In addition to the Now and Later views available to everyone, administrators also have access to “All Tasks” to view and modify tasks across the organization.

You can organize your tasks into separate groups according to teams in TrustOps, such as DevOps, Engineering, HR, etc.

Task buckets

Now

The following screenshot shows the tasks that you should focus on right now.

The Now tab is your immediate to-do list. Tasks on this list may have pending due dates or impact high-risk data. These are high-priority tasks.

To begin working on a task, 

1. Expand the task.
2. Click on the “Begin Task” action. This will lead you to the relevant page in TrustOps.
3. If any of the tasks do not need your immediate attention, you can reschedule them for a later time.
4. To reschedule a task, click on the ellipsis (three dots) menu at the top right corner of the expanded task, and click on “Snooze Until” and choose a date. The task will remain on your Later list until that date.
5. You can use the search bar at the top of the page to find all tasks matching a particular keyword.
6. To make your task list more approachable, you can filter your tasks by various categories. Such as:
   1. Tasks due in the next week, month, or six months
   2. Tasks from a specific set of  groups (DevOps, Engineering, HR, etc.)
   3. Type of task: Testing, Evidence, Onboarding, etc
7. If any filter is selected, filtered tasks are shown at the top of the screen. You can click on the “X” next to a filter to remove it. You can select “Clear All” to remove all the applied filters.

 

Later

The Later tab shows you the tasks that are assigned to you but are not considered high-priority. You can browse these tasks to plan your next to-do list. To begin working on tasks, 

1. Expand the task.
2. Click on the “Begin Task” action. This will take you to the relevant page in TrustOps.
3. If the task does not need your immediate attention, you can reschedule it for a later time.
4. To reschedule a task, click on the ellipsis … (three dots) menu at the top right corner of the expanded task, and choose a date. The task will remain in your Later list until that date.
5. You can use the search bar at the top of the page to find all tasks matching a particular keyword.
6. To make your task list more approachable, you can filter your tasks by various categories. Such as:
   1. Tasks due in the next week, month, or six months.
   2. Tasks from a specific set of groups (DevOps, Engineering, HR, etc.)
   3. Type of task: Testing, Evidence, Onboarding, etc.
7. If any filter is selected, filtered tasks are shown at the top of the screen. You can click on “X” next to a filter to remove it. You can select “Clear All” to remove all the applied filters.

The following screenshot shows the items that will need your attention soon.

All Tasks

These are the Tasks belonging to the entire team.

Admin users can observe the progress of the entire team. The “All Tasks” tab is only visible to admin users. This tab displays the tasks across the entire team, and admin users can assign or prioritize these tasks.

The following screenshot shows the All Tasks tab in Trust Ops.

1. Admin users can use the search bar at the top of the page to find all tasks matching a particular keyword.
2. To make the “All Tasks” list more approachable, admin users can filter your tasks by various categories. Such as:
   1. Tasks due in the next week, month, or six months
   2. Tasks from a specific set of groups (DevOps, Engineering, HR, etc.)
   3. Type of task: Testing, Evidence, Onboarding, etc.
   4. Task Status (open, resolved, dismissed)
   5. Task Priority (now, later)
   6. Tasks assigned to a specific team membe
3. If any filter is selected, filtered tasks are shown at the top of the screen. If any filter is selected, filtered tasks are shown at the top of the screen. Click on the “X” next to a filter to remove it. Click on “Clear All” to remove all applied filters.

What happens once a task is completed?

Once you finish a task, it will automatically be marked as complete. It will not appear in the task list. Tasks completed on a particular day are shown in “Resolved Tasks”.

The following screenshot shows Resolved tasks – under Tasks -> Now list.

Adding notes

Task notes are used to keep track of where you are on a particular task or even share your thoughts on other tasks. A note includes a creation date. You can add a note only to your own task, and admins can add a note to any task.

To add a note to any task

1. Expand a task.
2. Click on the “+ Add a Note” button.
3. A note will be added along with the date. This note will be visible to anyone with access to that task.

Tasks via Slack

Now priority tasks can also be viewed via the TrustCloud Slack app. In order to get started, make sure that you have properly configured your Slack application by clicking here

Task Notifications

Once setup each task owner in TrustCloud will receive an individual message via the TrustCloud Slack app with details on the tasks due, a quick link to begin the task, as well as key data points like due date, task type, along with any external ticket links. Users will also be able to view all their completed tasks via the TrustCloud Slack app’s home page.

 

External ticket links

Many organizations use different project management tools like Jira or Shortcut to log day-to-day work via tickets.  TrustOps enables you to link externally created tickets to your tasks. 

To add an external ticket link to a task

1. Expand on a particular task.
2. Click on the pencil icon to edit the task.
3. Paste your link in the “External Ticket” field. 
4. Once you have added links, your external tickets will be visible (and clickable) even in the minimal task list view.

Link Tasks to Jira

TrustOps tasks can also be linked directly into Jira! In order to get started, make sure that you have properly configured your Jira integration via the integrations page.

Creating a Ticket in Jira

TrustOps tasks can be linked to Jira in two ways. The first is automatic ticket creation, and the other is manual ticket creation.

Automatic Ticket Creation

Ticket creation with Jira can be fully automated with TrustOps. Any user can choose to create all their tasks automatically in Jira. To create a ticket in Jira automatically, you need to change a few settings. Once this setting is enabled, any task that is assigned to a particular user will be created in Jira.

To enable automatic ticket creation

1. Navigate to “Account Summary” in the TrustCloud program.
2. Click on the “Connected Apps” section within your TrustCloud program.
   The following screenshot shows the apps connected to TrustOps.
   
3. Navigate to the Task Management section to configure automatically creating tickets for selected projects.
4. Click on the “Configure” button.
   The following screenshot shows the task management configuration.
   
5. Select Project, Issue Type, Reporter and Assignee.
   The following screenshot shows how to set up automated ticket creation.
   
6. Click on “Complete”. Now, if any task is assigned to you, it will be automatically created in Jira.

Manual Ticket Creation

If automated ticket creation is not required, tickets can be created manually in Jira via the standard task flow. 

To create a ticket manually

1. Navigate to any of the tasks in TrustOps.
2. Click on the “Create Issue with Jira” button.
   The following screenshot shows how to create an issue with Jira.
3. Enter key details such as Project, Issue Type, Reporter, Assignee, Summary, and Description.
   The following screenshot shows capturing accurate Jira status via TrustOps tasks.

4. Click on the “Create Issue” button.

5. You can check the “Tickets” tab of the task to see the tickets linked to that particular task. It shows the current Status, Assignee, and Priority level. As TrustOps-Jira integration is bi-directional, changes made to the ticket in Jira will be reflected in the corresponding TrustOps task.

6. You can also unlink the task directly from this page by clicking on the “Unlink” button.

The following screenshot shows capturing accurate Jira status via TrustOps tasks.

 

NOTE:

TrustOps does not support pushing tickets into Private Jira projects or into Projects that are hidden by the Jira administrator.

TrustOps does not support the customization of fields or requirements that change by project type.

If you face any issues or have a specific Jira use case, kindly contact TrustOps support for further assistance.

Viewing related tasks

When you are looking at a particular task, it is helpful to know about other tasks related to the same control or system. If some of the tasks are related to other tasks, you can view them in the “Related Tasks” section.

The persistent task list

Tasks enable you to have a clear idea of your to-do list. It is useful information to keep your work aligned with project time frames. The persistent task button follows you around TrustOps and gives easy access to your Now tasks.

The persistent task button is at the bottom-right side of your screen.

Clicking this button will open the “Now” task panel. The persistent task list also includes “Related tasks,” which are either in the “Now” or “Later” lists.