Last night we launched one of the top feature requests: “Public Tasks”. Just a note: “Public” doesn’t mean everyone on the web, it means all the users in your Highrise account.

Before

Prior to the launching this new feature, the only person who could see a task was the person it was assigned to (the assignee) and/or the person who assigned it (the assignor). If you weren’t one of those two people then you wouldn’t be able to see it. You basically couldn’t see what other people had on their plate—you could only see what you had on yours.

After

Now you’ll find a checkbox when creating/editing a task that says “Let everyone see this task.” Checking this box makes the task visible to everyone in your Highrise account. So if you have a task to get done, and it’s not private in nature, you may want to check the “Let everyone see this task” so everyone else can see what’s on your plate. It’s entirely up to you.

You’ll see that “Let everyone see this task” is checked in this example. Once I save this task anyone will be able to see it. Unchecking it would make the task private (only visible to you).

New and Improved Tasks tab

When you visit the Tasks tab you’ll see a pulldown right after “Tasks for” in the light blue header. You can pick someone’s name from that list and see all the public tasks they’ve been assigned. If you click the “Completed” link in that same header you’ll also be able to see the public tasks that person has created.

Public tasks show up in the sidebar too

Your Dashboard task list only shows tasks assigned to you, but if you click on a person, company, or case, any tasks marked “Let everyone see this task” will be listed in the sidebar.

In this example you’ll see there’s a task assigned to David and a task assigned to Ryan. These are both visible to anyone on Chris Davis’ page because these tasks were marked “Let everyone see this task”.

We hope you like it!

This feature was tricker to implement than initially estimated, but we’re thrilled that we’re able to finally release it. We certainly hope you find it useful. We hope it allows you to get a better overview of who’s working on what, who’s responsible for what, and who’s completed what.

Pure beauty!! Thanks a lot!!

Thank you very much. This IS going to be very helpful.

Thank you SO MUCH for this outstanding addition! I noticed this last night, and this is very exciting news. I have been waiting for this functionality, and this will make a huge impact on how my business partner and I use Highrise.

You may be interested to know that this feature will probably push our usage of the software to the point where we upgrade to a paid account. I am sure that will prove to be true for other small businesses as well.

Thank you for everything you guys do. It is great to work with such wonderful software, and your response to our feature requests is really appreciated.

Our pleasure! We’re glad you like it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for this feature. It was one of our top 3 requests since Highrise was unleashed.

Now lets go to the next in line: one person, multiple companies (or easier @ CONTACTS tab – to have the ability to set (switch) organizations (ups, companies) as the default view, please.)

Keep up the good work. Highrise is one step closer to match our wildest dreams :)

Great addition! Bravo. It’s great to see this software evolving.

Next – can I have an option in my profile to make all my tasks public by default? I intend to share 99% of my tasks with my team; I don’t want to be checking that box all the time.

I agree with justinreach—I’ll be sharing 99% of my tasks as well.

Great work! I echo the excitement others have shown to see this web application evolving.

Yeah, setting this default would be a nice addition to this.

In the spirit of transparency… marking something as private is likely to happen less often than marking it as public.

Wow – talk about timing! We only just signed up yesterday and probably wouldn’t have used the system without this feature. Our whole purpose of using Highrise is to have a centrally viewable task list of everything happening in our 4 person company.

+1 for Justin’s idea … this was the first option we tried to change.

Also, it would be great to add an “anybody” option to the “Tasks for” filter. We really want to be able to see an overview of everything we all have to achieve through the day. Luckily with only 4 users it’s simple enough for us to click through each one, but an aggregate view would be awesome.

Great work guys! :)

I might be crazy but my dashboard is not showing public tasks assigned to other people. They are on the tasks/assigned page but not on the Dashboard where they would be useful…

Thanks very much – this is exactly what we’ve been looking for!

Oh I see they are visible only when I click a particular person. Well I’m sure this solved a lot of peoples problems but it doesn’t fit the way we work. My team is only three people and it’s better for all of us to see all the tasks on the dashboard because this way it’s easier for people to see what everyone is working on and fosters a sort of passive communication between us.

Wish there was an option to ‘show public tasks in dashboard’.

I’d really like a way to make the default for a task to be “Shared” I also 2nd the vote for a “show public tasks on dashboard” Its only my assistant and I using highrise.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’ve adjusted the new task form so that the “Let everyone see this task” checkbox remembers whether it’s checked or not after you add a task.

Cool, Sam. That fix works for me.

Thanks Sam!

Now we just need “Tasks for everyone” ;)

Great addition. Thanks guys!

I’d like to add another vote for an “everyone” option in the dropdown list of users when viewing outstanding tasks.

Also, it would be nice to be able to assign tasks to everyone, but that’s getting off topic for this thread so I’ll start a new one in the feature requests forum.

Thanks again!!

Many thanks Jason and the team.

However as an administrator, I would prefer to see all tasks assigned to everyone on the dashboard by selecting either the date or this week, next week, next month.

Is this in the scheme of things to come from 37 Signals?

Sarah

Many thanks to the 37 Signals team – a great development for Highrise which will be a major help for my users.
Thanks again.

Thanks – this was the #1 feature we thought was clearly missing. Greater probability we’ll stick with HighRise in the long run.

One suggestion: The account admin can decide that all tasks are automatically visible to everybody, no matter what. People would then not be able to uncheck the box to let everyone see the task. That would be great, as right now I have to tell all my associates to please always check the box.

Seems well useful, but not in as I can see from testing, the API yet!
How long before it is?

Just wanted to add my personal thanks. Great job guys! This was definitely one of the major missing features for us.

awesome :)