Today, tasks and notifications

Everything the office has to do lands in one place, the Today board (Property Management → Today). It holds two kinds of row. A task is written by a person: a call to return, a request from a tenant or an owner, a to-do. An automatic item is written by the module itself, mostly by the daily run overnight: a lease ending soon, a prospect to follow up, a month to close. Both look alike on the board, but only tasks can be edited, assigned, blocked or commented on. An automatic item can only be opened, marked done or skipped.

Every row ends the same way: a main step when the row has one (a blue Call, for example), a Done button, and a More menu, the three dots, that holds everything else. The subject opens the row's drawer (Procedure E); Open in the More menu goes to the page where the work is done. The board is also reached from the Today board button of the Property Management overview (click Property Management at the head of its menu) and from the dashboard's Property Management today card, which counts the same rows and says how many of them are blocked.

The board sorts every open row into four lanes by its due date, counted on the books' calendar:

Within a lane, rows run by due date and, on the same day, high priority first. The role switch at the top filters the board by role queue: Bookkeeper, Leasing, Manager and Maintenance show the rows of that queue; Mine shows only the rows assigned to you; All shows everything, and the number at the right of the switch counts the rows shown. A task that nobody has taken belongs to its queue; an assigned task stays in its queue too, with the person's initials beside it.

Here is the top of the board on Friday evening. Read the rows that came from other chapters first; the rows Alex wrote are explained in the procedures that follow.

Read the rows before touching them. The 2B inspection 3 was scheduled for November 4 in Chapter 13.9 and has not been walked: the manager was called to another building that day, and Summit is agreeing a new time with the tenant (Chapter 13.9). Open in its More menu goes to the inspection page (the subject opens the task's drawer), where the run is walked and completed. Done on the board would only close the reminder and leave the inspection open, so Alex leaves the row where it is; it will keep ageing until the inspection is done, and the Tasks Aging report (Chapter 13.17) will show it. The yellow On hold: Payment plan chip 4 comes from the 2B lease, which is on the payment plan of Chapter 13.6; it does not cancel the inspection.

The call to Riley Chen 5 was written by the module when Riley's check came back from the bank (Chapter 13.5). It sits in the Bookkeeper queue, so it is the bookkeeper's call, not Alex's. The prospect follow-up 6 is an automatic item from the leasing work of Chapter 13.3, assigned to Alex (the AM chip), so it also comes under Mine; it was due on Thursday, 11/05, so on Friday it sits in Overdue, still waiting for the call. Close October 2026 and the two trust reconciliations 8 are month-end rows for the bookkeeper (Chapter 13.12).¹ Further down, in Later, WO-0002 is the gutter work order from the drive-by inspection (Chapters 13.8 and 13.9); a work order's row has no due date.

The module writes rows for you as things happen. Most are automatic items; a few, such as the returned-payment call, the inspection runs and the work orders, are written as to-dos so that they can be assigned and commented on. Most lead straight to the page where the work is done: through a step button on the row (such as Call) or through Open in the More menu. The table lists the ones a Summit-sized office meets, and the chapter that covers each.

Tasks come from people: the Add task button here and on the Tasks page, the Make a task button of a poor inspection item, the recurring tasks of Settings, and requests that tenants send from the portal (Chapter 13.13).

A category says what a task is about, so the list can be filtered and the Tasks Aging report can count by it. Five come with the module. Summit hands out and loses keys often enough to want its own category.

1. 1

   Settings → Property Management → Tasks and inspections → Tasks

   The Property Management settings have a two-level menu: six sections in the first row (General, Fees and bills, Leasing, Tasks and inspections, Documents and messages, Data) and the pages of the open section in the second. The Categories card lists each category, how many tasks use it, and whether tenants and owners may choose it when they send a request from the portal.

2. 2

   Type the name in New category and click Add category

   Alex types Keys and locks. The page answers "Category added: Keys and locks." A new category is Staff only: it does not appear on the portal until you choose Offer on the portal from the row's More menu.

The arrows set the order in which the categories list in the task dialog and the filters. Each row's More menu holds Offer on the portal (or Stop offering on the portal), Rename... and Delete. Rename... opens a field with Save and changes the name on every task that carries it. A category in use cannot be deleted, and neither can the last one left.

The Recurring tasks card below makes a task on a schedule (a filter change every quarter, a safety check) and puts it on the board on its date. Each row has Edit, and a More menu with Run now, Pause (or Resume) and Delete. Chapter 13.9 sets one up; nothing more is needed here.

Dana Whitfield left a voicemail on Tuesday about the gutters at Juniper Cottage, and nobody wrote it down. Alex writes it down now, with the date it was really due.

1. 1

   On the Today board, click Add task

   The dialog opens with today as the due date, General inquiry as the category and the Manager queue chosen.

2. 2

   Fill in the subject, kind, due date, queue and links, then Add task

   Subject, kind and due date are required. Everything else helps someone else pick the task up.

The page answers "Task added: Return Dana Whitfield's call about the Juniper Cottage gutters." Alex adds four more for the calls and notes of the day, and later one for the chimney sweep. A task writes nothing to the books: no journal, no invoice.

The call to Dana now heads the Overdue lane, two days late, although it is 0 days old. Keep the two ideas apart: a task is overdue when its due date has passed, and its age counts the days since it was made. Age cannot be backdated. The 2B inspection, made on November 1, is 4 days old; everything Alex types today is 0.

Each task row has a Done button, a main step when there is one (Call on the returned-payment row), and a More menu, the three dots, with Open, Edit, Assign..., Comment..., Make a work order, Block... and Skip... (a work order's own row has no Make a work order). The items with three dots open a small form inside the menu.

1. 1

   Take a task: More, Assign..., choose the person, Assign

   The spare keys are Alex's job tomorrow morning. On the row of Cut two spare keys for the Galveston laundry room, Alex opens the More menu, clicks Assign..., chooses Alex Morgan under Assign to and clicks the blue Assign.

The page answers "Assigned to Alex Morgan." The row now shows AM instead of Manager queue, and the task appears under Mine on the role switch. Mine on the board counts every open row assigned to you, automatic items included (for Alex, four rows: the 2B inspection, the Devon Okafor follow-up, the keys and, later, Riley's faucet request), while the Mine tab of the Tasks page counts tasks only. When you give a task to someone else, the bell rings for them (Section 3). When you take a task yourself, no bell rings: you already know.

1. 2

   Park a task that waits on someone else: More, Block..., say why, Block it

   Alex asked two paving contractors for bids this week and cannot move until they answer. On the parking-lot row, Alex opens the More menu, clicks Block... and types under Why it is blocked Waiting on bids from two paving contractors (asked 11/05). A reason is required; it is kept with the task.

The page answers "Blocked. Unblock it when it can go on." The task stays on the Today board, in its lane, with a yellow Blocked chip, and it is still counted on the role switch and on the dashboard's card. Its More menu now offers Unblock instead of Block.... The reason shows when you point at the chip, and as a Blocked: line at the top of the task's drawer. The Tasks page also lists every blocked task under its Blocked tab.²

1. 3

   Turn a repair into a work order: Make a work order

   The loose handrail needs someone with tools, a record of the work and perhaps a bill. That is a work order (Chapter 13.8). On the handrail row Alex opens the More menu and clicks Make a work order. The New work order form opens with the task's subject, property and priority already in it.

2. 4

   Add the trade and notes, keep the vendor on Staff, then Open work order

   Summit's handyman will do it, so the vendor stays Staff (no vendor). The Open work order button is at the foot of the form, below the Lines card. Requested by stays Nobody: the office; the tenant who reported it is named in the task's notes.

The page answers "Work order WO-0006 is open. It is on the Today board for Maintenance." The task itself becomes the order's row: its subject now starts with WO-0006 and carries the wrench mark, its due date is cleared, so it moves to the Later lane, and it closes when the work order is closed. The task's drawer has the same Make a work order in its More menu, and once the order exists the drawer links to it.

The board shows what is open now. The Tasks page (Property Management → Tasks) shows every task, open or not, with filters and a selection bar for acting on many at once.

The low-priority jobs (filters and the chimney sweep) cannot be started this week. Alex wants them due on Monday 11/16, and, while at it, wants the Devon Okafor follow-up moved to the same Monday, because Devon asked to be called after the weekend.

1. 1

   Set Kind to Everything and tick the rows

   Alex ticks the furnace filters, the chimney sweep and Follow up: Devon Okafor (Listing site).

2. 2

   Choose Set due date, the date, and Apply

   The bar already warns "3 selected (rule rows are only marked done)". Alex applies anyway.

The page comes back with a red message, and the selection is gone: nothing is ticked and the action is reset.

The software refused the whole action and changed nothing, not even the two tasks: a bulk action is all or nothing. An automatic item's due date and assignee come from the rule that wrote it, so they cannot be moved by hand; the only bulk action open to it is Mark done. The follow-up stays where it is; Alex will either make the call or skip the row with the reason Devon asked to be called after the weekend.

1. 3

   Tick the two tasks again, choose Set due date and 11/16/2026, then Apply

   This time the automatic row stays unticked. The page answers "2 tasks now due 11/16/2026." Both move to the Later lane of the board.

The selection bar offers three actions, on up to 200 tasks at a time: Reassign (to a member, or back to the role queue), Mark done and Set due date. Only open and blocked rows have a tick box. Each task's history records the change with (bulk) after it.

Alex called Dana back from the car at 9:40 this morning and never logged it. Now it goes on the record.

1. 1

   Click the task's subject to open its drawer

   The drawer shows the task's chips (kind, state, category), a line with its due date, who has it and when it was made, its links, a Done button and a More menu, its comments and its history. Comments and history lines run the full width of the drawer, with the author and the time below each.

2. 2

   Type the comment and click Add comment

   Alex writes what was said and what Dana wants next. The page answers "Comment added."

The stamp on a comment is the moment it was typed (7:01 PM), not the moment of the call. That is why Alex put the time of the call in the text. Comments are for colleagues: on a task that came from the tenant portal, the drawer has a separate Reply to the requester box, and only that reply is shown to the tenant.

1. 3

   Click Done

   The page answers "Done." The task leaves the board and joins the Done tab, where it keeps its comments and history.

On an open task the drawer carries the same actions as the board's row.

Skip... is the other way to close a task: it asks why (the reason is kept) and is right for work that will not happen, a duplicate, or a request withdrawn. Edit opens the task dialog again, with an Add a comment box for the reason of the change; every edit is kept in the history. Comment... in the board's More menu adds a one-line comment without opening the drawer: type in What was said or done and click Add comment.

While Alex worked, Riley Chen sent a maintenance request from the tenant portal (Chapter 13.13), and the badge on the bell went up by one. The bell, in the top bar of every page (Chapter 1.3), gathers what is waiting for you. Property Management adds its own group, usually at the top.

Riley's request is a resident request on the board's Later lane, assigned to Alex, and it is handled in Chapter 13.13; Alex leaves it for the morning. A line put away stays away. The other Property Management lines come from the events in My notifications: a task someone gives you, a prospect someone gives you, a bill of yours approved or rejected, a notice about to run out, a move-out deadline, a vendor's insurance ending, a signature, an application, a failed delivery.

1. 1

   Settings → Property Management → Documents and messages → My notifications

   Every member of the books has this page, and the choices are your own, for these books only.

2. 2

   Tick or clear Bell and E-mail for each event, then Save my notifications

   Alex keeps the defaults: the bell on for everything, e-mail off.

E-mail needs two switches: yours here, and the books' own sending switch under Settings → Property Management → Documents and messages → Notifications. Summit's sending is off, so even a ticked E-mail box sends nothing yet; the bell works regardless.

Read it as the result of the session. On the board are the spare keys (now AM), the parking-lot bids with their Blocked chip, the filters and the chimney sweep in Later, WO-0006 with its wrench mark, and Riley's portal request. Only one task Alex wrote is not on it: the Dana call, done, on the Done tab. Every row that came from other chapters is still there, and nothing that belongs to another person's queue was marked done. The Later lane also holds two automatic reminders that Cascade Roofing & Gutter's insurance and workers' comp end on 11/30/2026 (Chapter 13.8).

Run Reports → Tasks Aging Report (Chapter 13.17) as of 11/06/2026 and it lists nine open tasks, all in the 0-7 days bucket: three assigned to Alex Morgan (the keys, Riley's faucet request and the 2B inspection, 5 days old), one in the Bookkeeper queue (Riley's returned-payment call), three in the Maintenance queue (WO-0002, 5 days; WO-0006; the filters) and two in the Manager queue (the bids and the chimney sweep). Automatic items are not tasks and are left out. The blocked task is counted, and the report's statement marks it blocked.

• [x] Read the board from Overdue down, and open each row before deciding what to do with it.
• [x] Rows of another queue are left for that queue, or assigned to the right person.
• [x] Every call and request is written down as a task the day it comes in, with the right kind and property.
• [x] Repairs that need a person, materials or a bill are work orders, not to-dos.
• [x] Tasks waiting on someone else are blocked with a reason; the Blocked tab is checked weekly and the tasks chased.
• [x] Calls are closed with a comment that says what was agreed, then marked Done.
• [x] Automatic items are marked Done only when the work they ask for is really done.
• [x] Bulk Mark done is run with Kind set to Tasks unless automatic items are meant.
• [x] The bell is cleared, and My notifications says how each event should reach you.