Checklists in Project for the web

It’s important that workers can keep track of every detail required to finish their work. Microsoft Project supports summary & subtasks to help users break their work into smaller pieces, but sometimes workers need to keep track of work that doesn’t need to be tracked by their project manager. To help with this, Microsoft are introducing checklists in Project for the web, a new way to track smaller pieces of work in your projects.

Checklist items are smaller bits of work that are attached to a task but do not need to be scheduled on their own. They are related to the completion of the overarching task.

This feature is rolling out now, November 2021, and should be available to all users by the end of this month.

How do I add checklist items?

You can add a checklist item in Project for the web in the task details pane. The Checklist section should appear under the other fields in your task.

You can add a checklist item by clicking Add an item, typing your checklist item name, and hitting Enter.

What if I need to turn a checklist item into a task?

We realize that there are pieces of work that may start as checklist items but evolve into their own tasks over the course of your project. We have made it easy to promote a checklist item into a task.

You can do this by hovering over the checklist item you wish to promote. On hover, you will be able to see the Promote and Delete buttons. Click on the Promote button. This will automatically convert your checklist item into its own task.

Your new task will appear directly under the original task in your project grid. This checklist item will now act like any other task in your project.

How do I delete a checklist item?

You can delete a checklist item in the same way that you promote a checklist item; hover over a task and click on the Delete button. This will remove your checklist item from your task’s checklist.

How many checklist items can I have on a task?

Like in Planner, you can have up to 20 checklist items on a task.

How do my checklist items affect the rest of my task?

Your checklist items should not have an effect on any of the other information in your parent task.