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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is TaskBin?
- Why should I use TaskBin?
- When should I use TaskBin?
- Where can I use TaskBin?
- What is a group and how do I create one?
- How do I add people to my group?
- What can an administrator do?
- How do I add a task to my task list?
- How do the priorities make it easy for me to manage my task list?
- Can I add a task to any of the group members?
- What if I need to explain a task or add a comment to a task?
- How can I mark a task as complete?
- How can I edit a task?
- How do I manage the group?
- What is MyPage? What does it contain?
- What is the alphabet list that I see at the top?
- How can I distinguish between new and old tasks?
- What are settings?
- Who built TaskBin?
What is TaskBin?
In TaskBin you are always part of a group (or maybe multiple groups). These groups define the context of the tasks. Once you are a part of a group, the other group members can add tasks to your list or edit it. So in a sense, all your tasks are "shared". TaskBin is not like a calendar or a scheduler, and there is no need to enter specific dates. Tasks can have the following priorities: Now, Today, Tomorrow, Sometime This Week and Sometime Soon. All your tasks have email notifications, which can be turned off. The application is ideal for work with cross location teams and has great support for multiple time zones. At one glance, you can see what is happening in your group, what was recently added/updated, what is due today, etc. This makes it a great company/team management tool.
Why should I use TaskBin?
If you work in groups or if you are currently involved in a group activity, then this application is tailor made for you. It helps you manage tasks across your entire group, so everyone is always on the same page.
Read how you can use it at work , at home or to plan an event.
When should I use TaskBin?
TaskBin is about collaboration and a group of people working towards the same goal. It could be at your home, at your workplace or with your friends. Let us run you through a few scenarios depicting where TaskBin can be useful:
1. Work in a team: TaskBin at MangoSpring
At MangoSpring we use TaskBin as our in-house 'company management' tool. Every employee at MangoSpring enters their 'to-do items' into to their task lists. The engineers add their daily code tasks like "writing a method to solve the time zone problem" or "cleanup the code" or "take care of bug in view filter". The engineering manager has his own tasks like "do code review" or "prepare data model for registration". Similarly, the HR and the product team members also enter their respective tasks.
If the product team discovers that a particular feature is not giving the desired output, they can add it to the Lead Engineer's task list. He/she can then decide to delegate it to someone else and also assign the priority as appropriate. MangoSpring is a cross location company (Seattle and Pune) and this ensures that the company management in Seattle knows what is on whose plate.
Team members at MangoSpring love TaskBin, as they can now see all of the other team members' task lists on their "MyPage" and easily share tasks with them. TaskBin has made our day-to-day life at the MangoSpring office much more efficient and more productive in the simplest way possible!
2. Plan an event
a) The Donovan's family vacation
It is Monica's wedding and a whole bunch of her relatives are coming from abroad! Many of them are meeting after many years and are planning to make it a family vacation of a lifetime! What better way to spend time with the entire family than to go on a trip together?
It was a gigantic task to match everyone's schedules, come up with a location, and make the plane/hotel reservations, and so much more! Uncle Joe said, "Don't worry; we will go the TaskBin way!" He created the Donovan family group on TaskBin and started allocating tasks to each of the family members. Now the entire Donovan family was able to keep a track of the plans for their family vacation from where ever they were. When Uncle Joe thought it was becoming too much for him to handle, he delegated the administration duties to his nephew Mark and reduced his responsibilities.
So while Monica planned her wedding on TaskBin, her family planned their grand family vacation and both of them turned out to be the events of the year!
b) A camping trip
Joe, Tanya, Bill, Jane and Sammy want to go on a hike on an upcoming extended weekend. Such planning usually results in a whole bunch of emails and phone calls. Jane had heard of TaskBin and wanted to try it out. She made a group on TaskBin and invited the others to join in. They added tasks to the to do list based on whatever they could think of- tickets, items to bring, food, rental of rooms etc.
This ensured no small item got missed. Everyone knew what they had to carry for the trip. There was no cluttering of everyone's email inbox and no frantic calls every time someone remembered they also needed a flashlight or a rope.
3. Manage your home: Patel's Motel
Taking care of all the chores at the Patel's Motel and at their house is usually a shared activity. Now that the kids are getting older, it is an increasingly chaotic task. This results in the chores being forgotten. That is until the oldest Patel daughter, Tina, heard about TaskBin from a friend.
Tina created a group for her family with TaskBin and added them to it. Mr. and Mrs. Patel can now keep track of all the things that need to be taken care of at the motel and at the house, while the kids keep track of their schoolwork and other engagements. Even delegating tasks has become easy because the entire family can plan & assign chores accordingly. Now there is no more flooding of motel room number 126 because Mrs. Patel forgot to call the plumber, or the need for Mr. Patel to wait outside of the locked house when he came home in the afternoon because nobody knew that Rita had an extra class. Thanks to TaskBin, the Patels are now more organized and life is a lot less chaotic!
Where can I use TaskBin?
You can use TaskBin anywhere, be it at work , at home or in your circle of events .
TaskBin is available both as a hosted solution and as a download and install service. The hosted service can be accessed at www.TaskBin.com.
To know about how you can privately host the application over your Intranet, send a sales inquiry to sales@TaskBin.com
What is a group and how do I create it?
Every TaskBin user is part of a group. The group provides the context for your task list. You can only view/edit the lists of people who are part of that group. To create a group, you must have an account at TaskBin. Each account can belong to multiple groups. Every time someone creates an account, they also create a group. If you have an existing account, you can add additional groups. The person creating the group gets the administration rights for the group by default. The name of the group can be anything from your firm or company name, to an event that you are a part of, to the social activities you are involved in.
How do I add people to my group?
Once you have created an account successfully with TaskBin, you are taken to the 'Manage Group' section. This section allows you to see the status of the members of your group as well as invite people to join your group.
Add a member page
When you click on the 'Add Member' tab, it opens a page that allows you to create and send invites to the people you would like to join your group. All you need to do is type in that person's name and valid e-mail ID in the text fields and click on the 'Invite' button. We here at TaskBin will immediately send an e-mail to that person with your request to join your group at TaskBin.
You have the option to share your responsibilities as an administrator of the group right at the time of inviting a person to join the group. Just check the box against 'Set as Admin' field and when the invited person accepts your invitation and registers; he will have all administration rights.
Invite e-mail and registration code
The invitation e-mail that the person receives will contain your request to join the group along with an exclusive code and a link. Clicking on the link will take that person to a TaskBin page where he/she needs to fill in the registration code that we have mailed them. This will take them to a registration page where he/she can create an account and join your group.
What can an administrator do?
An administrator can invite more people to join a group, keep a check on members by monitoring their login status, reset passwords for the members on request, and re-invite people who haven't joined the group with a single click.
How do I add a task to my task list?
You can quickly add a task by typing in the task details and setting the priority. The task gets added to the owner of the task list you are on. Clicking on 'Add Details' opens a pop-up where you can add detailed comments and choose people to share the task with.
How do the priorities make it easy for me to manage my task list?
Most of the tasks we need to do don't have dates, but they have urgency. They typically fall into the following categories: ones that can't be pushed any further and you need to complete them today, ones that can be pushed out till tomorrow, ones that need to get done with week, and ones that we always have in the back of our mind but are low in priority.
This is exactly how tasks are categorized at TaskBin. To be done today, Tomorrow, Sometimes this week or Sometimes soon. Priorities are color coded for easy reference. If something is super urgent you can "Yell" to get it done ASAP.
Can I add a task to any of the group members?
Yes, you can. You can share a task between any numbers of group members. You can do this by clicking on "Detailed" on the task list and adding the person to the list of members who share that task.
What if I need to explain/add a comment to the task?
You can add a comment to the task by clicking on the task and opening the 'Edit Task' popup. Type in the comment in the comments text box and save the task. It will be captured as part of the task details.
How can I mark a task as complete?
Just click on the check box against the task in your 'Things I Need To Do ' card and the task will be marked as complete and it will be shifted to the 'Completed Tasks' card.
Can I mark a task as complete for others?
Yes, you can. You can mark a task as complete for any group member by going to their task list.
Can I mark a completed task as 'incomplete'?
You can easily mark a completed task as incomplete by removing the check mark in the box against it. The task will be moved to the 'Things I Need To Do' card as a new task, but will retain all the previous information like priority, members who share the task and the comments.
How can I edit a task?
Clicking on a task in the 'Things I Need To Do' card will open the 'Edit Tasks' popup allowing you to edit the task. You can change the priority, alter the task owners, and add additional comments. You can see the history of edits to a task under task history.
How do I manage the group?
The administrator has the privilege to manage the group through the 'Manage Group' section of his/her TaskBin account. He can access this section by clicking on the 'Manage Group' link in the top navigation bar.
This page allows the group members with management rights to monitor the group activities, invite more people, reset passwords and settings, as well as delegate administration rights to other group members.
Every name listed in the Manage Group is a link. Clicking the link takes you to the member's information page.
How can I reset a password for a member?
The administrator can reset a member's password from the member's 'Member Info' page. Clicking on the Reset button against the member's password will reset his/her password to a system generated one. The member will receive an e-mail from TaskBin containing the new password.
What is My Page? What does it contain?
The 'My Page' section of your TaskBin account acts as your soft board. Here you can find the list of tasks that you need to do along with the tasks you have already completed. The 'My Page' section not only has your task lists, it also has the task lists of those group members you have added to your page for easy reference.
Add a person
You can add any of the members of the group into this section. This will provide you with quick access to their task lists. Just click on the drop down box and select a person from the members list in the drop down. That person's 'Things I Need To Do' card and 'Completed Tasks' card will be added to the tab.
What is the alphabet list that I see at the top?
The alphabet list allows you to move between pages based on the name of the group member. A selected alphabet opens a page that contains the to-do tasks lists and completed task lists of members with names starting with that particular alphabet.
How can I distinguish between new and old tasks?
Tasks added to your list and not viewed by you are marked in bold lettering.
What are settings?
In the setting section, you can edit your name, display a photo, change the time zone you live in, change your password and update your email notification preferences.
Who built TaskBin?
TaskBin is built by MangoSpring. It started off as an internal project to help us work better. Some of our friends who saw the tool loved it so much that they insisted we put it out on the web. And that's when TaskBin.com was born. Read more about MangoSpring here.
Please let us know what you love or hate about TaskBin. We will be grateful for any feedback you send us about the product.