Assigning Tasks and Setting Due Dates from Quick Add
Type @ in Quick Add to assign a task to someone or set its due date, right in the box, with full keyboard support.
Overview
The Quick Add box — the fast "type a title, press Enter" creator above your task list — now lets you set who a task is assigned to and when it's due, without ever leaving the box.
Type @ and a menu pops up offering people to assign the task to, or handy date phrases like "tomorrow" or "next week." Pick one and it slots into your sentence right where you typed it. Press Enter, and the task is created with a clean title plus that assignee and due date already set.
Assigning a Task
- Click into the Quick Add box and start typing your task title.
- Type
@followed by the start of a person's name or username.
- A People section appears in the menu, filtered as you type.
- Pick the person — click them, or use the keyboard (see below).
- Their name is completed right in the sentence —
@kenbecomes@mba.ken— and a small removable chip appears underneath showing who it will go to.
- Press Enter. The task is created, assigned to that person, with a clean title (the @mention is removed from the title itself).
Example: typing Call Norah re pricing @qa and picking QA Tester creates a task titled "Call Norah re pricing," assigned to QA Tester.
Setting a Due Date
Works exactly the same way, using date words instead of names.
Type this | Sets the due date to |
today | Today |
tomorrow or tmrw | Tomorrow |
A day of the week (monday … sunday) | The next occurrence of that day |
next week | The coming Monday |
in 3 days (or any number) | That many days from today |
sep 14, sept 14, or september 14 | September 14th |
14 sep | Also September 14th — either order works |
14/9 | September 14th (day/month order) |
If you type something the date menu doesn't recognize, it's simply left as ordinary text in your title — nothing is guessed at.
You can set both an assignee and a due date on the same task, in either order.
Using the Keyboard
The menu behaves the way you'd expect from any autocomplete:
- Arrow keys move a highlight up and down through the list — it moves smoothly from the People section into the Due Date section, since they're really one list.
- Tab picks whichever row is highlighted. If there's only one match, Tab picks it even if you haven't pressed an arrow key at all — handy when you've typed enough that only one option is left.
- Enter still creates the task, exactly as it always has — unless you've highlighted a row with the arrow keys, in which case it picks that row instead. If you never touch the arrows, Enter always submits.
- Escape closes the menu without picking anything.
Removing an Assignee or Due Date
Each pick shows up as a small chip beneath the box, with an × to remove it. Clicking × removes both the chip and the @mention text from your sentence — they're the same thing, so they always match. You can also just delete the @mention text yourself; the chip disappears along with it.
What Happens Behind the Scenes
- As you type, Sapience looks for an @ and shows matching people from the right list — your project's members on a project's task list, or everyone in your organization on All My Tasks.
- Picking a row rewrites that part of your sentence to the exact form Sapience needs (a username for a person, a specific word for a date) and keeps it visible.
- When you press Enter, Sapience reads through the finished sentence, pulls out anything it recognizes as an assignee or a due date, and creates the task with a clean title plus those fields already set.
- If a menu isn't offering anyone to assign (say, your organization's list hasn't loaded yet), the People section is simply left out — dates still work.
Things Worth Knowing
- The date list is fixed on purpose. Sapience doesn't try to guess at open-ended phrases like "next month" or "sometime soon" — only the specific words and formats above are recognized, so what you see is always what you get.
- Everything else about the task — priority, status, description — still takes the normal default. Open the task afterward if you want to set those.
- Available everywhere Quick Add is — a project's Tasks & Goals Manager, and All My Tasks.
Summary
Type @ in Quick Add to bring up a menu of people and dates, use the arrow keys or your mouse to pick one, and it completes right in your sentence. Press Enter and the task is created with a clean title, the right assignee, and the right due date — all from one box, with no extra clicks.