On Monday, Marta from a nine-person design studio is looking for the deadline for a mock-up for client Nord. Marek confirmed it in chat, the client's email is sitting in a colleague's inbox, and the calendar shows a different time. Where should the team record decisions so that Marek doesn't have to search for the deadline in three different places?
Why does a decision get lost even though everyone remembers the conversation?
A decision gets lost when the deadline stays in the chat, the confirmation sits in an email, and the calendar shows a different time. Remembering the conversation isn't enough if the deadline, the responsible person and the client's confirmation are scattered in different places.
Marta goes back to the mock-up. In chat, someone suggested a dark background, the client approved it by email, and Marek promised to have the design ready by Thursday at 12:00. Every fragment is true, but none of them on its own tells the team exactly what needs to be delivered and who's responsible for it. I cover this mechanism in more detail in the article about why teams lose track of decisions.
In Task Manager, a task has a subject, description, assigned people, priority, deadline and a conversation. The program records changes to the deadline, status or assigned people as system messages in the same thread. So turn the conversation about the mock-up into a task called "Mock-up for Nord", assign it to Marek and set the agreed deadline; you can keep discussing the colours within that same matter. You don't have to piece the decision back together from memory.
Where to record team decisions? Ask what should come of them
Record team decisions that have a deadline and a responsible person in a task, direct ongoing questions to chat, and handle client correspondence in Mail. This rule separates work to be done from conversation and from messages sent outside the company.
| What you need to record | Where | What you gain |
|---|---|---|
| A decision someone is accountable for | Task | Assigned people, deadline, status and a record of changes in the thread |
| A question or discussion without its own deadline | Chat in a Workspace | A conversation with a chosen group, without a task's status or priority |
| A reply to a client or their confirmation | Mail in the Pro plan | Correspondence sent from a connected inbox |
A Workspace is a space that groups tasks and chats related to a given area of work. Marta can have separate workspaces called "New website" and "Sales"; the "All" view shows tasks and chats from those workspaces together. You set permissions for administering a workspace and adding tasks and chats separately in each Workspace.
This rule doesn't mean you have to abandon the chat once a decision is made. If someone says in the conversation, "Marek will prepare the mock-up by Thursday", move that commitment to a task. The chat keeps the context, and the task shows the deadline and the responsible person without anyone having to search through earlier messages.
Link the email to the matter, but pass on the content separately
In the Pro plan, you can connect an inbox to Mail and link an email thread to a Workspace, a task or a chat. The link gives you a shortcut to the right matter, but it doesn't show the correspondence to the other people on the task.
On Monday, Marta receives a confirmation from client Nord. In the thread menu, she selects "Link", chooses the Workspace "New website", and then the mock-up task. The next time she reads the email, she'll use the "Open linked..." shortcut. If she stopped there, Marek still wouldn't know what the confirmation said.
The inbox is private, even from the Task Manager administrator. If Marek needs to know the agreed deadline or a change in scope, Marta pastes that information into the task. If an attachment is needed, she can save the attachments from the thread in Files, in the folder Mail → inbox → thread subject. Everyone who needs to use a shared company address connects it on their own account. This is an important boundary: a shortcut to an email is not a way to share its content.
Mail supports IMAP and SMTP servers, for receiving and sending messages respectively. Replies are sent from the server of the connected inbox, and you can expand the quoted history only when you need it. If your company wants to stick with a separate mail program, the Standard plan still lets you work with tasks and chats. You can also read about working with a shared address in the guide how to manage team email.
Notifications show what's waiting, not where to record the decision
The Notification Centre gathers new messages from tasks, chats and Mail, as well as mentions, status changes and reminders. It helps you get back to missed matters, but it doesn't replace the task where you record the deadline and the responsible person.
On Tuesday, Marta opens the panel and sees a summary of unread Mail and tasks with new messages. When new messages relate to several tasks, clicking the summary takes the list to "All" with the "New messages" filter applied. Categories let her check Mail, tasks or conversations separately; opening a thread clears the related notification from the Notification Centre.
Once a day, on first login after 6:00, the morning briefing shows the day's scheduled items in order of time. When the app is completely closed, the reminder channel is e-mail, and background sending requires a CRON set up for the installation. The counter alone won't do the work for you, though: after reading a message, decide whether it contains a commitment that needs to be saved as a task.
One editor makes it easier to switch channels, but it doesn't replace the decision
In a task, chat and Mail, you write in the same message editor. Whether a conversation turns into a task is still your decision.
In a task and chat, Enter sends the message, and Shift+Enter moves the text to a new line. You can mention someone with the @ sign or choose "Quote in reply" to point to a specific statement; clicking the quote takes you to the original. The blue "New" line shows where unread messages begin. If you stop typing, a draft copy stays with that thread.
On Thursday, Magda posts a four-point list in the conversation: copy, project draft, coding, deployment. She ticks off the first two points. Marta sees "2 of 4 done" and a mini avatar next to the ticked item; hovering over it shows who checked it and when. It's a useful record of progress. If deployment has its own deadline and owner, Marta creates a separate task for it instead of leaving it only as a message item.
A chat has its own list of participants within a Workspace and has no task status or priority. After installation, a "Shared" chat is also available, which new people join automatically. If you want to organise conversations around specific topics, see how chats work in Task Manager.
You'll read a long thread differently, but the original stays
The "Organise" button lets you change how a long thread is read for the current session. AI modes don't overwrite the original messages, so you can check every decision in the source correspondence.
There are four modes: "Original content" shows messages unchanged, "Polish" shortens and tidies their content, "Summarise" leaves 1-2 sentences with the implications of each message, and "Expert" adds an "Expert note" line underneath with advice, a risk or a question. The program processes the 8 most recent messages first; you can include older ones in a further batch. After refreshing the page, the AI has to prepare the view again.
When Marta is looking for a specific detail, she can privately ask the AI Assistant next to the reply field in Mail what the client wrote about the deadline. Only Marta sees the answer, marked "FOR YOU ONLY". The Assistant relies on the correspondence in that thread; if it can't find the answer, it says so directly. You'll find more about this way of reading conversations on the AI summaries page.
"Organise" and the AI Assistant require a configured AI key. Without one, you can still read and write messages as normal. Task Manager works with the client's own key at OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude or xAI Grok; you pay the provider for model use with no intermediary markup. Keep in mind that when using AI, content passed as context goes to the chosen model provider.
Tomorrow, carry over one decision, not the whole conversation history
Tomorrow, pick one current matter and record its deadline and owner in a task. If the confirmation came by e-mail, in the Pro variant link the thread to the task and copy the agreement the team needs to know into the task.
Task Manager keeps the app's data on your own server and doesn't charge a subscription per person. The licence is perpetual, includes 12 months of updates and lets you optionally renew them later. For the Classic plan, the Standard variant costs PLN 1,490, and Pro with Mail and Files costs PLN 3,990 - check the current breakdown of variants in the Task Manager pricing. If you'd like to follow this one matter on screen, open the Demo.
Frequently asked questions
Where to record team decisions: in a task or in chat?
Record a decision in a task when it has a deadline and a responsible person. Leave the chat for the ongoing conversation; once it produces a commitment, move it to a task.
Will the team see my email if I link it to a task?
No, the link is just a navigation shortcut and doesn't share the email's content. The inbox stays private, even from the administrator; paste into the task any decision the team needs to know.
Is Mail included in the Standard plan?
No, Mail is available in the Pro plan. In Standard, you can organise matters in tasks and chats while using a separate mail program.
What should you do when a thread has dozens of messages?
Turn on "Summarise" or "Expert" in the "Organise" menu, if you have an AI key configured. The program starts with the 8 most recent messages, and the result is a preview for the duration of the session - the originals remain unchanged.
Can you see all unread matters in one place?
Yes, the Notification Centre shows unread Mail threads, tasks and chats, as well as other notifications grouped by category. Clicking a summary takes you to the relevant thread or a filtered list.
Sources
- Task Manager, Features - Tasks - https://taskmanager.pl/funkcje/zadania (accessed: 16 October 2026).
- Task Manager, Features - Chats - https://taskmanager.pl/funkcje/czaty (accessed: 16 October 2026).
- Task Manager, Features - Mail - https://taskmanager.pl/funkcje/poczta (accessed: 16 October 2026).
- Task Manager, Resources - Mail - https://taskmanager.pl/materialy/poczta (accessed: 16 October 2026).
- Task Manager, Resources - Notification Centre - https://taskmanager.pl/materialy/centrum-powiadomien (accessed: 16 October 2026).
- Task Manager, Features - AI Assistant - https://taskmanager.pl/funkcje/asystent-ai (accessed: 16 October 2026).
- Task Manager, Pricing - https://taskmanager.pl/#pricing (accessed: 16 October 2026).
The Task Manager Team - we write about teamwork, AI in business and keeping tasks organised, using examples from Task Manager, software installed on your own server. Task Manager has been developed by Blue Creation Group (Piotr Łącz) since 2013 and is used by organisations including Neonet, the Military University of Technology and Polpharma - read customer reviews. We check our articles against the user guide and the latest version of the software.
