Assign tasks to your crew
A job site to-do always gets lost in the same place: the WhatsApp group. It was asked for on Tuesday, it got buried under forty messages, and by Friday nobody knows whether the generator made it to the tower or who said they would take it. Tasks is the list where that stops happening: every to-do has an owner, a date with a time, and a close that asks for proof. There is a single list — yours shows up in Tasks and also at the very top of Today — because the day two inboxes exist, people go back to WhatsApp, which at least has one. You open it from the side menu, and the red number next to "Tasks" is how many are already overdue.
- One list only: what each person owes lives in Tasks, and yours also shows up at the top of Today. There is no second inbox to check.
- You create a task by typing it or dictating it from the "+" button. When you dictate, the AI proposes and you confirm in an editable form: nothing is ever saved without you seeing it.
- The date carries a TIME. "Tomorrow" and "tomorrow at 8" are not the same task, and the reminder depends on that time.
- It gets assigned to people who have a Matterial account. For the architect, the inspector or the design team, use an RFI instead — that one does work without an account.
- Several views of the same list: List groups by how soon it's due, Board lets you drag the card to change status, and Calendar lets you reschedule (it changes the day and keeps the time).
- To look at the crew, two more views: the Schedule tab lays out Monday-to-Sunday with one lane per person, and Summary puts numbers on how each person is doing. You look at them, you don't drag in them.
- Closing asks for proof: a note on how it turned out and, where it applies, a photo. On a job site, "it's done" without a photo is just a claim.
- The task links to the budget line, the schedule activity, the purchase order or the machine it's about: that is what makes it understandable a month from now.
- What repeats, repeats on its own: daily, weekly, every two weeks or monthly. When you close one occurrence the next one is born with the same time.
- Three automatic alerts: an email on assignment, a reminder before it's due and, if it goes past due without being closed, an alert to whoever asked for it. The admin tunes them in Settings → Tasks.
- Tasks does not replace the Schedule module: work fronts, durations, dependencies and the critical path still live there.
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Create the task from the "+" button
The "+" button you always have within reach includes "Task". You can also go into Tasks and use "New task". The first thing is to write what needs doing, in a sentence that stands on its own: "take the generator to the tower", not "generator". If it needs context — what time they open, who to meet, what must not be moved — that goes in Details, so whoever receives it doesn't have to call you.
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Or dictate it, if your hands are full
On the same sheet switch to "Dictate", tap the microphone and talk the way you would talk to your foreman: "have Luis take the generator to the tower tomorrow at 8". Matterial transcribes and fills in the what, the who and the by-when on its own. Nothing is saved yet: the form stays open with what it understood so you can review it, fix the name if it misheard, and hit Save. Dictation is the only thing in this module that uses AI and burns credits (2 per minute, minimum 2); typing it costs nothing.
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Give it an owner, a date and a time
"Who's on it?" lists the members of your company. Under "By when?" you pick the day and the time — it comes in at 18:00, change it if the commitment is for early morning — and High priority marks the row so it doesn't blend in with the rest. You can leave it "Unassigned" if you don't yet know who will take it, but while it has no owner nobody gets an alert. And pick the job: with no job, the task belongs to the company and anyone on your team sees it.
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Link it to what it's about on the job
Open the task (tap its row) and under "What is it about?" pick a budget line, a schedule activity, a purchase order or a machine or tool, and then which one. That leaves a button to jump to that record. It's a minute that pays for itself: "check the pump", with no link, tells nobody anything a month from now; linked to the machine, whoever opens it lands straight on its record.
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Follow it in whichever view helps
At the top you have three numbers — Open, Overdue and Due today — and several tabs over the same list. List groups it by how soon it presses (Overdue, Today, This week, Later, No date). Board sorts it by status and you drag the card from Open to In progress, like on a whiteboard. Calendar puts it on the month and you drag it to another day to reschedule: it changes the day and keeps the time, so the 8 o'clock one is still an 8 o'clock one. The filters beside them decide what you're looking at: you land on "Mine only", but you can look at anyone's, at one job's, or at what's already closed. And what gets closed is not deleted: it moves to History, the last tab, with who closed it, when, and the photo they left; if you marked something done by mistake, you reopen it from there.
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See your people's week in the Schedule tab
The three views above answer "what do I owe". The Schedule tab answers a different one: who is loaded and who isn't. It's the Monday-to-Sunday week with one lane per person, and each task lands on the day it's due, so in one look you catch the superintendent with five to-dos on Tuesday and the one with none all week. Today is marked. The arrows take you to next week — to hand work out before it starts — and also to last week, which is where you find out what was left half done; a button brings you back to this week without counting clicks. At the very bottom sits the "Unassigned" lane: those are the ones nobody took, and the ones that get lost if nobody looks. And if you have open tasks with no date, below it tells you how many, because they don't fit in a grid of days and we don't want them to vanish quietly. Tap a task and its record opens. To move it to another day use the Calendar: here you look, you don't drag. On a phone the table slides sideways and the names column stays fixed, so you never lose track of whose lane you're reading.
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Hand the crew the numbers with Summary
Summary is the Monday-meeting glance, built only from what's already captured: how open work splits across High, Normal and Low priority; how much got closed in the period against what's still open; what's due today with its time and its owner, ready to read out loud; and one row per person with their open, overdue and closed counts. Up top there are also three numbers that aren't in the header: what closed in the period and the two usual leaks — what belongs to nobody and what nobody dated — which are the two reasons a to-do doesn't get done. It all respects the filters beside it, so you can read the summary of a single job or of a single person.
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Let the ones that repeat repeat themselves
Some to-dos come back every week: check the formwork on Monday, fill the diesel on Friday, send the report every two weeks. In the record, under "Does it repeat?", you pick daily, weekly, every two weeks or monthly, and under "Until" how long for. Your list doesn't fill up with future occurrences: the next one is born on its own the moment you close today's, with the same time and the same owner.
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Close it with a note and a photo
You close it from the circle on the row, by dragging the card to "Done", or with the button on the record, and it always goes through the same thing: a note on how it turned out and, where it applies, a photo. That step is on purpose. A closed task keeps who closed it and when, and the photo stands as proof for the week somebody asks. If you marked it done by mistake, it reopens.
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Discuss it inside the task, not outside it
Every task has its own comment thread. That's where "the north tower or the south one?" gets asked and answered, mentioning with @ whoever needs to know. That mention only rings for that person. The conversation stays stuck to the task, so whoever opens it later reads why what was done was done, without hunting for it in any chat.
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Let the alerts do the chasing for you
When you assign it, whoever receives it gets the bell and an email. Before it's due they get a reminder. And if the date passes without it being closed, the alert also reaches whoever asked for it: on a job site the boss needs to find out it wasn't done, not just the person who didn't do it. The admin tunes this in Settings → Tasks: an email switch (turn it off and the bell still alerts) and how many hours ahead they want the reminder. Emails go out in your company's language and with the time in your time zone, the one for the country you picked in Settings.
Frequently asked questions
Can I assign a task to the foreman, who doesn't have an account?
No. It can only be assigned to members of your company inside Matterial, because a task assigned to someone who can neither receive the alert nor close it is a lost task. You have two roads: invite them from Settings → Team (an email invitation, and they show up on the list right away), or — if it's an outsider you're asking something of, like the architect, the inspector or the design team — use an RFI, which generates a link so they can answer without an account.
Does it work with no signal, deep in the job site?
Not today. Tasks needs a connection to create, move and close. What does hold up without signal is the attendance roll call, receipts, the daily log and warehouse issue slips: they're saved on the phone and sync when you reconnect. If you're out of data, the habit that works is to dictate the task the moment you get signal back, while it's still fresh.
How is this different from the Schedule module?
The project Schedule plans the job: work fronts, durations, dependencies and the critical path, and that's where progress comes from. Tasks is the people's list: what somebody owes and by when, including what fits in no work front ("get the inspector's signature", "return the rented mixer"). You can link a task to a schedule activity so it's clear what it's about, but a task creates no dependencies and moves no critical path. Careful with the name: inside Tasks there is a tab also called Schedule, and it's a different thing — each person's week, with no dependencies and no critical path. The project Schedule still lives in its own module, in the left menu.
Does the Summary tell me how many hours went into each task?
No, and it isn't a pending item: Matterial doesn't record hours per task, so that number doesn't exist and we'd rather not invent it. The Summary counts tasks — open, overdue and closed per person — not time. Crew hours are kept in the attendance roll call, which is where they actually get captured and where payroll comes from.
Does this burn AI credits?
Only dictation, which is transcription plus a model that sorts what you said into fields: 2 credits per minute, minimum 2. Everything else — typing the task, all the views (including the per-person schedule and the summary), the filters, the recurrence, closing with a photo and the three alerts — is deterministic and doesn't touch your company's credit pool.
What happens if a task goes past due and nobody closes it?
Three things, without you having to remember. It turns red and rises to the "Overdue" group, which is the first thing you see when you open it. The red number on the side menu counts it. And the overdue alert also reaches whoever asked for it, so the chasing is done by the person who should be doing it.
Are there task templates by job phase?
Not yet. Every task is created by hand or by dictating it. What is automated is what comes back: set the task to repeat and each close generates the next one, which in practice covers most of what gets done the same way every week.
Do tasks arrive over WhatsApp?
No. Alerts go to the bell inside Matterial and to email. What does go out over WhatsApp is the end-of-day summary, from Today, and there you can spell out what was left open.
Does everyone see every task in the company?
Each person sees the ones for the jobs they have access to, plus the company ones (the ones that hang off no job). If you limited someone's access to certain jobs in Settings → Team, the tasks for the other jobs don't exist for that person in any of the views: not in the list, not on the board, not on the calendar, not in the per-person schedule, and not in the summary's numbers.