Work items
A work item is the unit of work in Orbit: an epic, story, task, bug or sub-task, or a type your administrators define. This page shows how to create, change and organize work items.
Types and hierarchy
Section titled “Types and hierarchy”- Built-in types are epic, story, task, bug and sub-task. Administrators can add types, with names and icons, through work type schemes. See Custom fields, screens and schemes.
- Work items form a tree: parent and child, epics and their work, and a configurable higher hierarchy. Orbit rejects cycles and illegal moves between types.
- Every work item has an immutable ID and a human key such as
ORB-12. A key a work item had before it was moved still opens it.
Fields, estimates and dates
Section titled “Fields, estimates and dates”A work item carries a summary, a rich description, an environment, a reporter, an assignee, a priority, a resolution, labels, components and versions. It also has a start date and a due date, an original and a remaining estimate, story points and time spent. A due date before the start date is refused.
Which of these fields you see when you create, edit or view a work item depends on the create, edit and view screens of the project. The create dialog, the side panel and the full page show the fields the project’s screens define.
Create, edit and open
Section titled “Create, edit and open”- Press
Cto open the create dialog. Pickers are type-ahead fields that can create a value in place. - Edit fields inline in the side panel or on the full page. All three places share the same validation and show field-level errors.
- Click a key to open the side panel.
CtrlorCmdplus click, or middle click, opens a new tab.
An update carries the work item’s updatedAt. If someone saved first, Orbit refuses with a conflict and your draft stays in the editor.
Links and dependencies
Section titled “Links and dependencies”Work items link to each other with typed links that have an inward and an outward phrase. Links with the type blocks become dependencies drawn on timelines. Remote links are supported. A linked work item you may not read shows no summary.
Clone, move, split and convert
Section titled “Clone, move, split and convert”| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Clone | Copies a work item. You choose whether sub-tasks, links and attachments come along. The copy gets a new key and records where it came from. |
| Move | Moves work across projects and types. A mapping preview for fields, status and parent shows what would be lost before anything changes. There is no silent loss of incompatible values. |
| Split and child work | Splits work or creates child work with the parent’s fields. A check shows the type, status, assignee, priority, sprint, labels, components, versions, estimate and project fields before it is created. |
| Convert | Converts a task to a sub-task and back, with the hierarchy validated and the history preserved. |
Bulk operations
Section titled “Bulk operations”Edit, assign, transition, move, archive and delete many work items at once. Bulk operations run as background jobs, check permissions for each item, and report an outcome per row. A failed bulk transition leaves all the participating items unchanged.
Attachments, comments and activity
Section titled “Attachments, comments and activity”- Attachments. Upload, preview and download with content validation. A work item holds at most 100 attachments.
- Comments. Create, edit and delete with
@mentionsby real name, reactions, and saved versions of an edited comment. Comments can be restricted, and the API and live events respect the restriction. - History. The field changelog records who changed what, when, with old and new values, in the same transaction as the change. History stays correct after renames, moves, deleted options and deactivated people.
- Watch and vote. Watch or vote on a work item. Duplicate requests do not inflate counts. Administrators can add and remove other watchers.
- Flags. Flag a work item as blocked without changing its workflow status.
- Work logs. Log time with a start, a duration and a visibility. You choose whether the remaining estimate is recalculated automatically, left alone, or set to a value. Aggregates reconcile with the entries.
- Who else is here. The work item header shows who else has it open and who is writing a comment. Status: in development..
Security, archive and redaction
Section titled “Security, archive and redaction”A work item can carry a security classification that limits who can see it. Archived work leaves the board and search and is restored from the project’s archive. Changing who can see an item, archiving it and restoring it ask for a reason of 3 to 1000 characters. Redaction follows audit and retention rules.
Templates and recurring work
Section titled “Templates and recurring work”Work item templates and recurring work are configured in the project settings. Recurring work is created by real server-side schedules with deduplication, and is tested across time zones.