Working with Workboard

Workboard is the task board that collects your GitLab issues, merge requests, questions, and mail in one place. Its README covers installation of the board, the Android app, and the Thunderbird add-on. This page describes how to run mail through it, so a mail that asks something of you leaves the inbox and comes back when it needs you.

Workboard sends task, mail, and issue text only to the on-prem model, never to an external one.

A mail that asks you something

Open the mail in Thunderbird and press Add to Workboard. The prompt prefills the project and the deadline the mail asks for, resolving wording such as “by Friday” against the date the mail was sent. Check both, and tick Archive the mail after adding to move it out of the inbox once the task exists. See in Workboard keeps working from the archive.

A task with a deadline shows due 5d, due today, or overdue 2d on the board, and rises to the top from three days before the deadline. Set or change a deadline with f on the task’s metadata screen in the board, or with Edit deadline in the Android app.

Waiting on someone else

When answering needs input from someone else, mail them as usual. Then open that mail in your Sent folder and press Add to Workboard. On a sent mail the add-on shows a wait form, submitted with Wait for a reply:

Blocks

The task that needs the answer. Your most recently added task is preselected.

Remind on

When to chase the answer: four working days before the task's deadline, at 09:00. A task without a deadline uses the delegation follow-up for its priority (P1 after a day, P2 after three, P3 after a week, P4 after two weeks).

Waiting on

The addresses whose answer you wait for, the mail's recipients by default.

The task now reads blocked, with the wait under it as awaiting reply and waiting 2d · Hans. Go does not launch a wait, and the board never suggests one as your next task.

When the reminder passes without an answer, the wait asks for your attention (no answer for 4d). Chase the person, then press w on the wait’s metadata screen to set the next reminder. The deadline keeps its own warning: the blocked task still rises from three days before it, also while it waits.

When the answer arrives

A reply in the thread of your sent mail closes the wait. Another mail from someone you wait on closes it only when the on-prem model judges that it answers your question, so a mail about something else leaves the wait open. Thunderbird checks this while it runs and catches up on start for mail that arrived while it was closed.

An answer by phone, Mattermost, or in person goes in by hand: press a on the wait in the board (or the Answer received button in the Android app) and type what you heard, or take a note during the conversation and save it to the wait (see below).

Either way the wait closes, the answer and its attachments land in the blocked task’s plan, and the blocked task asks for your attention (Hans answered) until you start it, close it, or block it on something new.

Notes during a call

Start typing as the conversation happens, without looking up its task first: press A on the board, or the Note button in the Android app. Once the note says enough, Workboard suggests the open tasks it is most likely about, waits included. Save it to a suggestion or to any other task (Ctrl-G in the board), or keep it unassigned.

A note saved to a task joins the task’s plan; a note saved to a wait answers it. An unassigned note stays on top of your Current list until you assign it: a on the note in the board, or Assign note in the Android app.