How to add and manage task and milestone statuses

Overview 

Office Timeline Online lets you quickly set a status for any task or milestone on your timeline, and even create custom status categories. This guide will show you all the ins and outs of working with statuses.

You’ll learn how to:

A) Add status to your tasks or milestones

B) Remove the status from a task or milestone

C) Manage status categories on your current timeline

D) Set default status at account level

Read the full guide or use the links above to jump to the section you’re interested in.

A) Add status to your tasks or milestones

Adding a status to one of your tasks or milestones is super easy.

1. Open your timeline in the Data view and click the “+” in the Status field corresponding to your desired item:

2. Then simply select a relevant option from the menu that pops up.

   

Note: If you can’t see the Status column in the Data View, toggle it on from the +Add column menu:

B) Remove the status from a task or milestone

To remove the status from a task or milestone, click in the corresponding Status cell, press Delete or Backspace, and then Enter.

C) Manage status categories on your current timeline

In the Data View on your current timeline, you can create new status categories, edit the current ones, or delete them. Here’s how it works:

1. To create a custom status category, click the Status field corresponding to any task or milestone and, from the menu that pops up, select Create new status:
   
   Then, just pick a color and a name for your new status and click “Create new status”.
   

2. To edit or delete an existing status category on your current timeline, open the Status menu from any cell in the Data view and click the little pencil icon next to the desired category.

   
   In the dialog that pops up, you can then change the title or color of the selected status category, or choose to permanently delete it.
   

The changes made here to status categories will automatically apply to your current timeline – they will not affect other timelines.

D) Set default status at your current level

Editing status categories at the account level means that the chosen settings will be applied automatically to any new timeline you create (visuals already saved in your account will not be affected). To do it, click on the Account icon in the top-right corner of the screen and go to User settings.

Here, in the Status section, you can edit the current status categories, delete them, add new ones, reorder them, and customize colors. Once happy, don't forget to click Save..

If you generally don't need to track task status on your timelines and don’t want to see this column in the Data View, simply switch off the toggle next to the Status tab in the User settings window, and it will be hidden from view on any new timelines you create.