We've been busy. Based on feedback from head office teams and store managers using NextTask every day, we've shipped a set of features that cut down on wasted effort, made reporting clearer, and gave stores a faster way to see what needs attention. Here's everything that's new, in the order we think matters most to your day to day.
Solo submissions for team tasks
This is the biggest workflow change in this release. Previously, if you assigned a team task to 10 people, all 10 had to complete it individually before the task was marked done. That made sense for some tasks, but for a lot of team tasks, only one person actually needs to do the work while the rest just need to be in the loop.
Now you can link multiple people to a task, but only one submission is needed for the whole task to be marked complete. Ten people can be tagged on a task, and as soon as one of them submits it, everyone linked to that task sees it as done. No more chasing nine other people who assumed someone else already handled it.
Schedule regular store tasks in advance
You can now create a store task ahead of time and schedule it to only appear once the store opens. Set it up the night before and it'll land in the store's queue right at opening time the next morning, or the next time the store opens if you're scheduling on a Friday for a store that's closed over the weekend.
This means head office no longer needs to be awake at store opening to fire off tasks for the day. Plan a week of tasks in one sitting and let NextTask deliver them exactly when each store is ready to act on them.
Recurring general store tasks
For the tasks that never really end, opening checklists, daily displays, weekly stock counts, you can now set up a general store task once and have it recur automatically every day, every week, or on whatever schedule fits. No more recreating the same task from scratch each time it comes around.
A gallery for every image, across every store
Head office users now have access to a new gallery that pulls together every image submitted across all stores and all task types, tasks, requests, and checklists, into one place. Filter by store to see everything that store has submitted over the years, all in one scrollable view.
This is useful for spotting trends at a specific location, building a visual history for audits, or just seeing how a store has progressed over time without digging through individual tasks one by one.
Categories for team tasks, training, resources, and announcements
You can now create categories for head office to head office team tasks, as well as for store training material, store resources, and announcements. Instead of everything sitting in one long list, related items are grouped together, making it far easier to find what you need and keep related work organized as your task volume grows.
Bigger image and video uploads
We've increased both the maximum image size and the maximum video length that can be uploaded. Whether it's a higher resolution photo for a detailed compliance check or a longer video walkthrough of a store setup, there's now more room to submit exactly what's needed to prove a task was done properly.
New status badges across the platform
Store tasks, store requests, and team tasks now carry status badges so you can tell at a glance what needs attention. On store tasks, head office sees a "new message" badge and stores see their own "new message" badge, along with a "recently created" badge for tasks that just landed. Store requests show a "new message" badge, and team tasks show both "new message" and "recently created" badges.
These badges mean you don't have to open every task to check whether something has moved. A quick scan of the list tells you what's fresh and what has unread activity.
Sidebar counter badges for the store side
Store side users now get counter badges directly on the sidebar, giving an instant view of which pages have something waiting. Instead of clicking through each section to check for updates, the sidebar itself tells you where to look first.
Emoji support across the whole site
Emojis can now be used anywhere on NextTask, in messages, task descriptions, comments, and more. A small change, but it makes day to day communication between head office and stores feel a lot more natural.
Reminder notifications for expiring checklists and due tasks
NextTask will now proactively remind users when a checklist is about to expire or a task is coming up on its due date. Rather than relying on someone remembering to check, the reminder comes to you, reducing the chance that anything slips through the cracks close to a deadline.
Coming next: automated regional unit counts
We're working on automated regional and area manager unit counts. The idea is simple: unit counts are pulled from each store's own counts over a set period, and a random selection of items is chosen for regional managers to physically verify. This gives you a way to spot check that the numbers being reported are accurate, without requiring a full manual recount of everything, every time.
That's everything in this update. As always, these features came directly from feedback we've heard from teams using NextTask across their stores every day, so if there's something that would make your operations easier, we want to hear about it.
Have a look around the platform to see these changes in action, and get in touch if you have any questions or ideas for what should come next.
