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Managing Work Items and teams
Managing Work Items and teams

Learn to make changes to all the parts of a work item to best fit your workflow, including timelines, tasks and work teams.

Erin Jamison avatar
Written by Erin Jamison
Updated over a week ago

So you've created your first work item, what now? Now it's time to populate the timeline of the work item with communication regarding the work, pinning important emails or notes and moving emails or notes around. When you've made changes to your work templates or repeating schedules, you might need to reset your work, maybe you want to change the work team or you may wish to delete your work altogether. Whatever it is, read on to learn how!

Index

Managing the Work timeline

The work timeline is the place that holds all communication regarding that specific job, such as emails and notes and a timeline of what's happened on the work item's task checklist. That way you always have a quick and easy overview of all the information you need to do your work.


Adding an email or a note to a work timeline

To attach an email to a work timeline, click on either 'Add to timeline' under the Email header, the option menu '...' and then 'Add to Work' or 'Add to timeline' under Timelines in the information tray.

When you do this, you can search for a work item that's already in Karbon or click 'Create new work' at the bottom of the list.

Removing an email or a note from a work timeline

If an email is attached to the wrong Work timeline, you can remove it by clicking 'X' from the email’s timeline tray.

Pin an email or a note to a work timeline

Your most important notes, emails and corresponding conversations can be pinned to the top of a work timeline for quick reference.

This is useful if you won't need to refer back to something regularly or keep something top-of-mind for your team.

To pin a note or an email, select 'Pin' from that item's options menu.


The item will then appear at the top of the timeline for everyone in your team, with an icon showing who it was pinned by.

There is no limit to the number of items that can be pinned to one timeline, and anyone in your team has this ability. If multiple items are pinned to one timeline, they will be displayed in chronological order.

Note: This will also show the pinned note or email on the work overlay in your My Week, so colleague's don't have to go to the work item to see the note or email.

Unpin an email or a note from a work timeline

You can follow the same process to unpin an item, this time selecting 'Unpin' from the options menu.

It will then move back to the position on the timeline it would be in if it hadn't been pinned. Karbon users who did not pin the item in the first place will still have the ability to unpin it.

Moving emails or notes to a different work item

You can move items like emails or notes from one piece of work to another one.

Notes and emails are moved from one work item to another in different ways.

If you no longer want a note or email on a specific timeline, select the 'X' next to name of that work item or person and that item will be removed from the timeline.

To add a note or email to a new or additional timeline, select 'Add to Timeline', choose if it's for a work timeline or a contact timeline, and enter in search for that item.


Resetting work

Resetting a work item reverts the tasks and details back to the template it was created from, or the previous work item in the schedule. Resetting a work item is something you might need to do after having made changes to a work template or to the previous work item in a work item that's on a repeating schedule.

If you make any changes to a template or a work item in a repeating schedule, you can reset any work items created from it to ensure you are always working off your most accurate tasks, work team, budget and estimated time

Navigate to the work item that you would like the changes copied to. From your work options menu, select 'Reset Work'.

This will present the option to reset the current work item’s tasks, work team budget and estimated time to the work item it was from, or the previous work item in its schedule (if applicable).


If you do not see the option to Reset Work, then the current work item was not created from a template and is not part of a work schedule.

Resetting a work item from the repeating schedule settings

You can also reset a work item from the repeating schedule it is part of when you are editing the repeating schedule settings.

When editing the work schedule, navigate to the 'Work' tab. If the tasks have been created for any work items, you will also have the option to reset work from here by simply clicking on 'Reset Work' for the items you wish to reset.

You can now choose if you want to reset the work item to the original template or to the previous work item. This will reset all of your details (tasks, work team, budget, and estimated time) to inherit the changes from the previous work item in the schedule.

A few things to consider before doing this:

  • Clicking this option will replace all Tasks on the piece of work with those from the Template

  • The reset button only shows up once the Tasks on a piece of work have been created. If you don't see the button, simply click on the Task tab and then back to Details tab

  • If the Tasks in the Template tasks are assigned to 'Job Role' placeholders, you will be required to assign these to individual staff members

  • If the Work item is part of a schedule, the changes will be carried over to all future Work, unless the next piece of work tasks have already been created, or if you or someone else from your team have already opened the Tasks tab in any future pieces of Work. In this case, you'll need to reset the next scheduled piece of work to the Template as well

  • If Client Tasks have already been sent in the piece of work, they'll be removed and you'll need to send the new Client Tasks to your client once you revert to Template

Moving tasks between work items

If you're unable to finish all the tasks in a work item, you can move them to another piece of work.

If you are unable to get to tasks from a work item that is coming to an end, you can move tasks to another work item.

To do this, simply click on the 3 buttons located on the right-hand side of your desired section of tasks or tasks, and click move as you see below.


You will then be given a prompt asking you where you'd like to send it. Enter in your work items name and go ahead and move your task.

Note: We do not recommend for work on a repeating schedule for services like Payroll, Month-end close, Monthly Accounting etc.

Edit, change or reassign a work team

A work team lets you keep track of anyone from your firm who is involved with a piece of work. A work team consists of the client owner and client manager for the contact associated with the work item; anyone assigned tasks, emails or notes relating to the work item; or anyone is manually added to the work team.

To edit the work team, select 'Edit' under Work team on the work item's Details tab.

From here, you can manually add colleagues or practice teams to the work team. You can also choose to remove existing work team members or change work team members. You can change the work team by reassigning a different team member to a role on the work team.

If the contact associated with the work is Private or Hidden, adding a colleague or Work Team will allow the colleague or team to see the details of the work and contact.

Contacts involved in work

Immediately below the work team on the details tab, you will be able to see 'Other Contacts Involved'. This is a list of contacts who appear within the work's timeline or who have been sent client tasks from this work item.

If you're interested in seeing all work items that a particular colleague or team is involved with, you can do so from the main Work page.

Delete work

To delete a piece of work, click on the Options menu "..." and select Delete.

This will permanently remove the work from your account and have the following consequences:

  • All emails attached to the work will still be available in the contact(s) timelines

  • Notes that were not assigned to anyone will be deleted

  • All tasks will be deleted

  • All comments within tasks (including client tasks) will be deleted

Please note that by deleting work, you are not deleting the schedule of work.

Delete or end a work schedule

You can delete a work schedule but consider the important note below before following the steps to delete. Deleting the schedule will also delete future work items (if any have been created).

Note: If there is any work in the schedule that you do not want to be deleted (including the work item you are currently viewing), make sure that each work item's start date is the current date or earlier.

All work in the schedule that has a start date in the future will be deleted. Any task comments will be permanently lost, including comments on client tasks. Items on the timeline will not be lost, but you'll want to consider first adding them to alternate timelines. When a work item is deleted it is gone forever; deleting is different from changing work status.

Best Practice Tip: Instead of deleting a work schedule, consider simply ending the work schedule. By Identifying an end date, you will be able to keep work items previous to that "end date". All future work after the end date will be deleted.

Ending a work schedule

You can end a work schedule by:

  • Clicking on the work item's options menu '...'

  • Selecting 'Edit Repeating Work'

  • Clicking 'Edit' under Repeat Settings

  • Click the drop-down arrow next to 'Repeat Until' and choose a date. All work starting after that date will be deleted

Delete a work schedule

You can delete a work schedule by:

  • Clicking on the work item's options menu '...'

  • Selecting 'Edit Repeating Work'

  • Clicking 'Edit' under Repeat Settings

  • Scrolling to the bottom to 'Delete Repeat'. Any work in the series with a start date after today will be deleted

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