From Track to Plan
Toggl Track covers the past. The reports show where your team’s time went. Toggl Plan covers the future. It will help you plan what needs to get done, by when, and by whom.
The present is where they’ll meet. Plan will show your team what to focus on now, while Track’s real-time data will keep your teammates accountable towards those plans.
Below is a step-by-step process that will make adding Toggl Plan to a team’s workflow as smooth as possible.
In this guide:
Before you get started
Both Toggl Track and Plan have the same Client → Project → Task structure. However, there are some differences you should consider. For example, Plan doesn’t support private projects, since sharing plans and progress across an organization increase trust and accountability within teams. Read Getting started with Toggl Plan for more details.
Some other points to keep in mind:
Tasks are the basic piece of information in Plan, like how time entries are in Track. Each task represents a planned activity, with from-to date, assignees, and more.
The left navigation bar on the Plan website lists all the views in the workspace. Each view shows tasks that match specific criteria.
In most cases, a view can show tasks as a:
- A day-by-day Timeline.
- A kanban board (if the view is for a project).
You can group similar tasks under a project. Each project view shows only the project's tasks.
You can group similar projects under a client, to organize the list of views as an outline.
Create teams and add users
Teams are like user groups in Track. They show tasks related to a specific set of people. You can assign each team member to several teams. For example, two different Plan teams can cover an entire department, and a sub-group under it.
- On the left navigation bar, click the
+
beside theTEAMS
to add a new team. - Type in the new team’s name, and click
Continue
. - On the
Team settings
window, you can either:Add an existing workspace user
by searching for their name, and clicking the right match from the list that appears as you type.Add a new user
by entering their name or email address, then clickingAdd
.
- When done setting up the team, click
Close
.
💡 You add users by entering just their names. These “ghost” users allow you to set things up first and play around. When you’re ready, you can add each user’s email address to invite them into the workspace.
If you want to add users without creating or editing a team, click the Users icon on the upper-left of the Plan website.
Create clients and projects
After adding team members to the Plan workspace, it’s time to create the clients and projects that will organize the planned work.
You can use Plan’s built-in Toggl Track integration to auto-create clients and projects to match what you’ve already set up on Track. Here’s how to set that up.
If you want to create your own set of clients and projects:
- On the left navigation bar, click the
+
beside theCLIENTS
to add a new client. Do this until you’ve added all your intended clients. - Next, click the
+
beside thePROJECTS
to add a new project. While creating a project you can assign it to a client, with theCLIENT NAME
box. Do this for each project you want to create, for all clients.
💡 To move an existing project under a client, click on the three dots beside it and click Move to client
.
Create tasks
Last but not least, it’s time to start creating tasks and planning activities for your team.
On the left navigation bar, click the project you want to assign the task to, then click on Timeline
or Board
.
- On the timeline view, click-and-drag across the days to create a task.
- On the board view, click the
+
beside the column you want to create the task under. - On both views you can also click
+ New Task
in the top-right corner, or hit[N]
button on your keyboard. A task will only appear on a timeline if it hasFrom
andTo
dates.
💡 You can also create projects on the fly, while creating a task. Click Search or add
beside Project
on the task card.
Customize tasks
Now that you’re familiar with the basic workflow of Plan, see how you can get more out of it:
Time estimates
Like Track, Plan supports time estimates for tasks. Time estimates are great for making sure you’re staying in project budgets and keeping your team busy without overworking anyone. They’re also great for communicating expectations to team members.
- Individuals can see time estimations for tasks assigned to them.
- Team leads can see each person’s daily workload on any
TEAMS
timeline. - With the Toggl Track integration set up, use the Project Progress Overview to see estimated vs tracked time for projects.
Properties and Sections
Add and modify any task’s functionality, to change how its card will look within Plan. For one-off changes:
- Open a task
- Click the Menu icon on the top-right, or press
[M]
on your keyboard. - Add all the needed properties and sections, like
Checklist
andAttachments
.
Customizing the default setup of new tasks is possible under your profile settings.
💡 Quickly add an attachment to a task by dragging a file from your computer’s file explorer to the create/edit task box.
Explore project properties
Segments
Segments allow you to organize a project by project phase, team, milestone or any other way you might see fit. They organize tasks into separate “swimlanes” in a project’s timeline. On a project’s board view, you can filter tasks by their respective segment.
Statuses
Statuses help you and your team to asynchronously share progress.
On timelines, “Done” tasks are faded out to better visualize what’s done and what’s coming up. Project board views organize the tasks into columns by status, allowing team members to grasp the progression of each task.
The default statuses for tasks are:
- 🗒️ To-do
- 🚧 In progress
- 🚫 Blocked
- ✅ Done
You can also add custom statuses for each project separately, and categorize specific statuses as “Done” when needed.
Tags
In Plan, Tags allow you to add additional sorting and data to tasks within a project. A common example is using tags to communicate task urgency.
You can filter any project timeline or board view so that it shows only tasks with a specific tag.
How to add time off
Adding time off to Toggl Plan ensures that you’re scheduling work for team members who are available. Trying to assign a task to a team member who is marked as off will trigger a conflict warning.
The easiest way to schedule time off is to create a regular task on your swimlane on My work
, or through a TEAMS
view. Click on Schedule Time off
on in the Actions
section of the task menu.
There are three types of time off that appear with different icons on your timeline:
- Annual leave
- Public Holiday
- Other
To edit time off, just click on the time off icon on the timeline.