Creating and managing projects

Common project management challenges include:

• Lack of clarity on who is responsible for what

• Scattered updates across emails and chats

• Difficulty tracking progress and meeting deadlines

MeisterTask helps you build a centralized workspace where projects stay structured, teams remain aligned and workflows are easy to manage. In this chapter, you will learn how to:

• Create and customize projects to match your workflow

• Invite team members and assign roles for clear accountability

• Manage tasks efficiently using different views and automation

• Track progress, share updates and generate reports effortlessly

By the end of this chapter, you’ll have a fully functional workspace tailored to your needs, ensuring your team can collaborate efficiently without confusion or delays.

1. Creating your first project

MeisterTask gives you and your team a collaborative workspace to stay organized, track progress and manage workflows with ease. Projects provide a structured way to plan and execute work, ensuring everyone knows their tasks and deadlines.

With different project views, automation tools and integrations, you can customize workflows to fit your team's needs. This keeps everyone aligned and moving in the same direction.

To create a new project:

1. Open MeisterTask and navigate to your dashboard

2. Click the + button and select New Project

3. Enter a project name, select your project view (List or Board) and choose a visibility setting (Private or Team)

4. Click Create Project to finalize

2. Setting up your project

Setting up a project in MeisterTask depends on how you plan to collaborate. If you are working alone, a private project keeps everything accessible only to you. Choosing the right setup helps create a workflow that matches your needs, whether for personal organization or team-wide collaboration.

When setting up a new project in MeisterTask, you can choose between a team project and a private project based on your needs and the level of collaboration you require.

Team projects

• Designed for collaboration, allowing multiple users to work together

• Team members can be assigned different roles and permissions

• Ideal for group-based work environments, team coordination and project tracking

• Allows real-time updates and task management across multiple contributors

Private projects

• Restricted to the creator and are not shared with other users unless explicitly invited

• Useful for personal task management, brainstorming ideas or organizing individual workflows

• Provides secure space for sensitive or confidential information

To convert a private project into a team project later, go to Project Settings, select Sharing Options and invite team members to collaborate.

3. Inviting team members to your project

Once you’ve got your project set up, it’s time to invite your project team members to join. 

1. Click the project name at the top of your project board.

2. Select Share from the drop-down menu.

3. Enter the email address of the user you'd like to add to your project. You can enter multiple addresses separated by commas.

4. Roles and permissions in projects

You can assign five different roles with specific permissions to project members. This flexibility allows everyone to contribute in the way that makes the most sense for their role, while keeping project data safe and secure.

Each member of a MeisterTask project can be given one of the following roles:

• Content Manager: Has full control over the project. They can modify tasks, add/remove collaborators and change all project properties (sections, automations, integrations, etc.)

• Contributor: Can modify tasks in the project but cannot change any project settings

• Guest: Can only access and edit tasks which have been assigned to them or on which they have been added as watchers

• Commentor: Can view projects and comment on tasks, but cannot modify either in any way

• Viewer (read-only): can open a project and view all tasks individually, but they cannot edit the project or its tasks in any way

To change a role:

1. Click the project name at the top of your project board

2. Select Project Settings

3. Click the Members tab

4. Scroll through your list of project collaborators to find the user whose role you'd like to change

5. Click the small arrow next to their current role

6. Select the users' new role from the drop-down menu

5. Creating and managing tasks in projects

Tasks in MeisterTask are the building blocks of your projects, helping you and your team stay organized, assign responsibilities and track progress efficiently. Whether you’re breaking down a project into actionable steps or managing ongoing workflows, tasks keep everything structured and visible.

What you can do with tasks in MeisterTask:

• Create and assign tasks with a title, description and due date

• Add checklists to break tasks into smaller steps

• Attach files, images and documents for easy access

• Leave comments to collaborate and provide updates

• Move tasks through workflow stages using Kanban-style sections

• Use tags and labels to organize and find tasks quickly

• Set task dependencies to manage priorities and sequences

• Automate actions like status updates, notifications and assignments

• Create recurring tasks for repeated activities

• Track progress with due dates, time tracking and completion status

• Get real-time notifications when tasks are updated or completed

By using tasks effectively, your team can work more efficiently, stay aligned and ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.

To create a task

1. Open your project and navigate to the desired section

2. Click + Add Task to create a new task

3. Enter a task title

4. Click the task to open and add a description, due date and assignee

Adding task details and enhancements 

Providing the right details within tasks helps your team stay informed and clear on what needs to be done. With checklists, attachments and comments, tasks become more structured and actionable. This reduces confusion and minimizes unnecessary back-and-forth, saving everyone time.

Open a task and use the following features:

• Checklists: Add sub-tasks to break down tasks (Add checklists)

• Subtasks: Create smaller tasks within a parent task (Add subtasks)

• Attachments: Upload relevant files (Attach files)

6. Adding guests to a project

Collaboration doesn’t always stop with your internal team. Sometimes you need to involve clients, suppliers or external partners who need visibility into progress, deadlines or potential roadblocks.

Instead of relying on scattered emails or endless status updates, MeisterTask makes it easy to bring guests into your projects while keeping control over what they can access. This ensures that everyone stays informed, aligned and able to contribute without the hassle of switching between tools or chasing updates.

To add external collaborators:

1. Click the project name at the top of your project board

2. Open Project Settings

3. Navigate to the Sharing tab

4. Enter the guest's email address and assign access rights

7. Following or watching a project

Staying informed about project updates and task progress is essential. A timely notification can help you stay ahead of deadlines and be prepared for discussions with your team or stakeholders. Instead of constantly checking for updates, you can follow or watch a project to receive relevant notifications, ensuring you always have the latest information when you need it.

So to stay updated on any project or task:

1. Click the project name at the top of your project board

2. Select Project Settings from the drop-down menu

3. Click the bell icon in the top-right corner of the project settings window

4. Get real-time notifications on task updates 

8. Generating reports for project insights

Meetings and strategy sessions often put you on the spot and without the right data, answering key questions can be challenging. Whether you need to provide updates to upper management, track team performance or identify bottlenecks, having clear and reliable insights makes all the difference.

MeisterTask’s reporting function gives you real-time access to progress updates, task completion rates and workload distribution, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual reports. Instead of relying on selective information or guesswork, you get accurate, data-driven insights that help you make informed decisions.

This allows you to focus on solutions rather than just identifying problems, keeping discussions productive and your projects on track.

To obtain reports:

1. Navigate to the Reports section

2. Choose from pre-built report templates or customize your own

3. Analyze task completion rates, overdue items and workload distribution

9. Customizing project settings

Every project is different and having the flexibility to tailor your setup makes managing work easier. Some projects may benefit from the calendar integration to track deadlines, while others might require checklists or custom fields to capture important details.

MeisterTask allows you to adapt your project settings to fit your workflow, ensuring you have the tools and structure needed to keep everything organized.

You have the freedom to customize your projects to fit your needs:

1. Open your project and click on the Project Settings (gear icon)

2. Navigate through the following customization options:

• Power-ups: Add extra functionality such as Calendar or Google Calendar

• Automations: Streamline workflows by setting up predefined task triggers (Automations)

• Checklists: Break down tasks into structured sub-tasks (Checklists)

• Custom fields: Add personalized fields to track additional project data (Custom Fields)

10. Using alternative project views

Every team works differently and the way you visualize tasks can make a big impact on productivity. MeisterTask offers multiple project views so you can choose the layout that best fits your workflow. Whether you prefer a structured list, a visual board or a timeline layout, you can customize how you see and manage your tasks.

Choose from (or switch between):

Kanban view (Default):

•  Displays tasks in a section-based format

• Drag and drop tasks between sections

•  Ideal for visual project tracking

List view:

• Shows tasks in a structured list format

• Great for detailed task planning and prioritization

Timeline view:

• Enables time-based planning with Gantt-style visualization

• Useful for tracking deadlines and dependencies

To change your project view:

• Click Board in the top navigation bar.

• Select your preferred view from the dropdown.