Workflows & statuses

If there’s one idea worth getting comfortable with in the task tracker, it’s this one — and it’s simpler than it sounds. A status is where a task is right now. A workflow is the full set of statuses a task can be in, plus the moves between them. Moving a task from one status to another is how work visibly progresses.

Picture a task as a little train. The statuses are the stations. The workflow is the map of stations and the tracks that connect them. Every task is sitting at some station, and your job is to move it down the line until it reaches “Done.”

Status: where a task is now

A status is a single state a task can be in — for example Open, In Progress, In Review, Blocked, or Done. At any moment, every task has exactly one status. When you move a task to a new status, you’re saying “this work has progressed (or stalled).”

Workflow: the map of statuses

A workflow defines which statuses exist and how a task may travel between them. A simple, friendly workflow might look like this:

Open  →  In Progress  →  In Review  →  Done

Each arrow is an allowed move. When a new project is created, BridgeApp gives it a sensible default workflow so you can start immediately, and you can shape it to match how your team really works.

One workflow per project — with room for exceptions

A project has one active workflow that applies to its tasks by default. That keeps things consistent: everyone’s tasks move through the same stations.

But a task type can override the project workflow with its own. So your ordinary tasks might use Open → In Progress → In Review → Done, while Epics use a shorter Planned → In Progress → Shipped. Use overrides sparingly — only when a kind of work genuinely moves differently.

Moving a task

There are a few natural ways to change a task’s status:

On a board — drag the task’s card from one column to another. Each column is a status.
In a task’s detail panel — click the Status field and choose a new one.
In a list or table view — click the status cell and pick from the dropdown.

However you do it, the change is instant and your teammates see it live.

Designing a workflow that fits

A good workflow is the smallest one that tells the truth about your process. Some guidance:

Start with three or four statuses. You can always add more.
Name statuses for states, not people. “In Review” beats “With Sam.”
Add a “Blocked” status if your team often waits on outside things — it makes stuck work visible.