Overview

Tasks are at the core of what Floatist does. They can be used for any work that needs to be completed: repairs, routine maintenance, cleaning, provisioning, and more. Tasks are connected throughout the application: to boats, bookings, extras, checklists, and inventory.

Creating a task

The Create task form opens in Simple mode by default, showing only the fields needed to get a task logged: Title, Boat, Assignees, Due date, and Attachments. Switch to Full with the All fields toggle at the top of the form (or the Show all fields button at the bottom) to reach every other field described in Task fields, including Description, Component, Category, Labels, Project, and Checklists.

Floatist remembers your last choice per browser, so the form reopens in the same mode next time.

Task fields

A task contains the following fields:

• ID: Unique and monotonically increasing number. This is the simplest way to refer to a task.
• Title: A summary of what has to be done, or a description of a problem that was found.
• Description: An optional text with details about the work required.
• Priority: To set the importance or urgency of a task. This can be one of the following: Highest, High, Medium, Low, Lowest.
• Attachments: Images and other files. Mainly used to document what’s broken and its location.
• Comments: Users can add comments on a task, with both text and images.
• Workflow state: Represents where the task is in its lifecycle (To be done, In progress, Done…). Workflow states are fully customizable. See Workflow states.
• Due date: An optional date indicating when the task should be finished. This allows base managers to prioritize tasks, and is the foundation for planned maintenance and schedules.
• Estimated labor: An optional time estimate for how long the task should take to complete. Useful for workload planning.
• Boat: A task can be assigned to 0 or 1 boat. This is the fundamental link that makes Floatist work for maintenance. Tasks without boats can be used for other activities, like clean the office once a week.
• Component: Boats contain components (like an Engine), and those components typically have a location on the boat plan. Assigning components to tasks allows you to be more specific about what needs work, and enables analytics about which components break most often. This link is also the foundation for planned maintenance.
• Location: Allows you to place markers on the boat’s deck plan, so technicians can quickly find where the work needs to happen.
• Assignees: A task can be assigned to 0, 1 or multiple users. Assignees can filter tasks assigned to them and receive push notifications when tasks are assigned.
• Category: Floatist supports category hierarchies. Base managers can create custom categories and assign them to tasks. Categories are useful for analytics, for example answering questions like: How much did we spend on electrical repairs?
• Labels: A flexible mechanism to model any other categorization beyond categories or assignees. Labels have a name and a configurable color.
• Project: A task can be part of a project. Projects are typically used for complex maintenance periods, like winter maintenance. See Projects.
• Checklists: Checklists that can be attached to a task. Submitting a checklist is independent of the task’s workflow state: a task can be marked Done whether or not its checklists have been submitted, though typically you’d want them completed before closing out.
• Billables: Cost tracking for the task. See Billables.
• Created by: The user who created the task. It’s set automatically, shown as a column in the table view, and included in CSV and PDF exports, handy for seeing at a glance who raised each task.
• Activity: Every action on a task is tracked through Floatist’s activity stream. Managers can always know who did what and when.

Task relationships

Tasks can be connected to other objects in Floatist:

• Other tasks: Create parent-child relationships. For example, a parent task to check the oil filters can spawn a child task replace oil filter if maintenance is needed. This models causality between tasks.
• Charter issues: When a guest reports a problem during their charter, the base manager can create a task to handle the repair once the boat returns. The charter issue stays linked to the task, visible from both sides.
• Booking comments: A booking’s lifecycle involves many steps, and each step can have comments. When a comment turns into actionable work, you can create a linked task. This makes it easy to track and bill all tasks that originated from a specific booking.
• Extras: Tasks can be created on the booking timeline for extra preparation and clean-up. These tasks can also be generated automatically using extra automations. See Extras Operations for details.

Workflow states

Workflow states model the lifecycle of a task. They are divided into 3 fixed categories:

• Unstarted: The task has been created, but no one is working on it.
• Started: Someone is actively working on the task.
• Done: The task is completed.

Each category must have at least one workflow state. You can create custom states within each category at Settings > Task management > Workflow states.

Recommended workflows

Consider adding states to describe when a task cannot proceed, or when additional steps are needed after completion. For example:

• Started:
  • Needs parts: A technician wanted to start a task but items are missing from inventory
  • Parts ordered: Parts have been ordered but not yet received
• Done:
  • Invoiced: The task is done and has been invoiced

Billables

Executing a task costs time and money. To keep your business running, you want to track those costs and bill the right person, typically either the boat owner or a booking guest. In Floatist, you can add the following billables to a task:

• Labor: Record how long a staff member worked on the task, along with notes. You can add multiple labor entries per task if different people worked on it.
• Inventory item: Track which parts were consumed from your warehouse. This is the link between Inventory Management and tasks.
• Expense: Any other type of cost, with an amount and notes.

All billables are visible on the task detail page and contribute to the Cost and Labor views, helping you track spending across your fleet.

Task comments

Users can add comments on tasks with both text and images. A dedicated comments page gives you a centralized view of all comments across your tasks. A preview of recent task comments is also displayed on the dashboard.

Task views

Floatist provides multiple views to help you work with tasks in different ways:

• Table: Information in a tabular layout. Default on desktop. Supports data export to PDF and CSV.
• List: Compact view showing the most important task data. Default on mobile.
• Calendar: Monthly calendar where tasks are displayed by their due date.
• Workload: A weekly grid that shows task due dates on the horizontal axis and assignees on the vertical axis. Useful for distributing work evenly across your team.
• Plan: Displays tasks on the boat’s deck plan, based on the task’s location or component.
• Count: A chart showing the number of tasks, grouped by an entity of your choosing (boat, assignee, workflow state, etc.).
• Cost: Similar to Count, but adding up all costs recorded on tasks.
• Labor: Similar to Count and Cost, but adding up total labor recorded on tasks.

Table columns

The task table columns can be reordered using the gear icon on the top right of the table. Drag and drop columns to arrange them, and toggle columns on or off to customize your view.

Archiving tasks

You can archive tasks to hide them from the default task list without permanently deleting them. Archived tasks are useful for keeping completed or outdated tasks out of sight while preserving their history and cost data.

To view archived tasks, apply the Archived filter on the task list.

Note

When a project is deleted, all its tasks are automatically archived rather than permanently removed.

Bulk creation

Besides creating single tasks, you can create the same task for multiple boats at once.

• Go to the Task management > Tasks page.
• Click the arrow next to Create task and select Create in Bulk.
• Add the details of the task you want to create.
• Use the filters to select which boats and/or components should receive the task:
  • No filters selected: one task is created for each boat in your fleet.
  • Boats selected: tasks are created only for those boats.
  • Components selected: tasks are created only for boats that have those components.
  • Both selected: tasks are created only for selected boats that have the selected components.

Bulk update

You can change the same fields on many tasks at once. Users with the Task admin permission can open Bulk edit from:

• The task table: select tasks using the checkboxes, then click Actions > Bulk edit. Use select all to edit every task that matches your current filters, across all pages.
• The task calendar: select two or more tasks, then click Bulk edit.
• The Bookings > Extra fulfillment matrix: click the bulk edit icon on an extra’s column header to edit all its tasks, or on a booking’s cell to edit all tasks for that booking.

In the Bulk edit tasks window, click Change a field and pick the field you want to change. Add one row per field. Fields you don’t add stay exactly as they are on every task. Each row has its own action:

Field	Actions
Workflow state	Set to
Boat	Set to, Remove boat
Assignees	Add, Remove, Replace with, Clear
Labels	Add, Remove, Replace with, Clear
Category	Set to, Clear
Priority	Set to, Clear
Project	Set to, Clear
Due date	Set to, Clear
Labor estimate	Set to, Clear

Add and Remove only touch the assignees or labels you pick, so everyone else on the task stays put. Replace with swaps the whole list for your selection. The button at the bottom shows how many tasks will be updated; click it to apply the changes.

Moving tasks to another boat

Use the Boat row to move tasks to a different boat, or Remove boat to take them off any boat. This is handy when a job was logged on the wrong boat, or when you swap boats on a booking and the prep work has to follow.

When a task moves, Floatist clears everything that belonged to the old boat:

• Component
• Location on the boat plan
• Running hours due, and the component they were counted on

The due date stays, so moved tasks are ranked by due date only. Everything else on the task (title, assignees, checklists, attachments, comments, and links to bookings and extras) stays as it was. The change is recorded in each task’s activity.

Note

Tasks created by a schedule keep their boat, because they follow their component’s maintenance plan. The rest of your changes still apply to them, and the confirmation message tells you how many scheduled tasks kept their boat.

Export tasks as PDF

Task reports can be exported as formal PDF documents:

• In bulk from the Task List: select tasks using the checkboxes (multi-select or select all, up to 200 tasks at a time), then click Actions > Download reports at the top of the table.
• From an individual task: open the task detail page, click the 3-dot menu, and select Export as PDF.