Shift Tasks Board
The Shift Tasks Board is a shared list of unfinished items and reminders for staff that helps hand information off between shifts: whatever one shift didn't get to is immediately visible to the next one. Open Admin Panel → Tasks (admin.cenaly.ru/tasks), or use the "Shift Tasks" item right inside the POS menu.
The board is shared per location — one board for every staff member at that venue.
List view#
The main view is a Todoist-style list:
- Quick-add — an input field at the top; a task is created with a single click.
- Tasks are grouped by status: "Open", "In Progress", "Done".
- Each task has a title, tags, priority, and an optional due date.
- Marking a task done records who closed it and when.
Kanban view#
The second view is a kanban board with three columns (Open / In Progress / Done). Tasks move between columns by drag-and-drop — and on touch screens the same action also has dedicated buttons, so it doesn't rely on touch precision.
The board header has a "Page view" gear with three ready presets — Simple (My day, compact rows, meta hidden, done items hidden), Standard (list with all the meta) and Detailed (kanban with all the meta) — plus row density, per-field meta toggles and "hide done". The chosen view is stored in your profile, so the board looks the same on every device you sign in from.
Tags, priority and due date#
Each task can have:
- Tags — your own labels with a custom name and color (e.g., "Kitchen", "Hall", "Purchasing") for grouping and filtering.
- Priority — normal or high, so urgent tasks don't get lost in the general list.
- Due date (optional) — a date by which the task should be closed.
The tag manager lets you create and rename tags right from the board.
Access from POS#
The tasks board is built into the POS workflow:
- The POS menu has a dedicated "Shift Tasks" item with a counter of open tasks — staff instantly see how many unfinished items the location has.
- The shift-close modal (see Cash Shift) lets you quickly add a task for the next shift without switching sections.
The shift coordinator: checklists, DoD and blockers#
On top of the plain board runs a coordinator — a set of rules that takes routine hand-outs off the manager. There is no text generation involved: everything is deterministic and predictable.
Checklist templates#
A checklist ("Opening the shift", "Closing the bar", "Waiter onboarding") is defined by a template: a root task plus its items. Recurrence lives on the template, not on the task — every run creates a fresh set of tasks, so history and already-completed work never get tangled.
The assignee on a template is a role, not a person. At the moment the checklist is materialised the system picks who gets it: active employees of that role → whoever currently has an open cash shift → the least loaded one. Nobody suitable — the task simply stays unassigned.
Checklists are materialised automatically on events:
| Event | What happens |
|---|---|
| Cash shift opened | the opening checklist appears by itself, and the till shows a notification. Re-opening a shift does not duplicate it |
| Employee hired | an onboarding checklist is materialised — filtered by position, so a waiter's onboarding doesn't land on a cook |
| Employee dismissed | an offboarding checklist: revoke the PIN, close the mailbox, collect the keys |
There is a built-in catalogue of standard checklists (waiter, cook and cashier onboarding, a generic offboarding) — a button copies a blank into your own list, and from there it is an ordinary template: editable and switchable. The "Checklists" dialog is available to owners and managers.
Definition of Done#
A task can require that before closing someone attaches a photo, leaves a note, or closes all subtasks. The check runs on the server, so dragging the card into "Done" cannot bypass it — the system returns a clear error instead. Closing the task and attaching the photo in one save still works.
Dependencies and blockers#
- "Cannot start before" — a task can wait on other tasks; the card shows how many it is waiting for;
- Blocked — a separate marker with a reason: waiting for another task, a person, or an external event. It is a reason, not a fourth kanban column;
- closing a blocking task automatically unblocks everything that was waiting on it.
Time estimate#
A task has an estimate in minutes — a human one, not a computed one: the system neither invents it nor "refines" it after the fact. The estimate shows as a badge on the card and adds up into a sense of how much labour a shift costs.
Every action on tasks (creation, status and assignee changes, due date, estimate, blocks, moves, checklist materialisation) is written to an event log — the foundation for future metrics.
At the till#
When a shift opens, the till shows a notification about the created checklist; when it closes, a "Not closed from the checklist" block appears with a "Leave for tomorrow" button.
Related sections#
- Cash Shift — opening/closing a shift, where you can also leave a task for the next shift
- Hall panel — a compact tasks board right inside the till
- Demand forecast — the prep plan, sent to the board with one button
- Staff & Shifts — staff roles and shift schedule
- POS — the cashier's workspace, from which the tasks board is accessible
FAQ#
Is the tasks board the same as shift open/close notes?#
No, opening/closing notes are a short entry inside a single cash shift. The tasks board is a full list with statuses, tags, priority and due dates, shared across the whole location rather than tied to one shift.
Can I use the board without POS?#
Yes, the "Tasks" section in the admin panel works independently and is available to any staff member with access to the location, even if POS isn't used.
Who sees the tasks — the whole chain or just one location?#
The board is separate per location — tasks aren't shared between different venues in a chain.
Can tasks be deleted?#
Yes, any task can be deleted from the board, in both the list and kanban views.