4 Most Frequently Asked Questions from New Wrike Users

We asked our customer success teams what the most frequently asked questions were in their training sessions with customers and during onsite client calls, because we figured it might make a useful post for any newcomers to Wrike. Here are four of them:

1. When do you use Folders vs. Projects?

Tasks are the basic building block in Wrike. And you can place tasks in either folders or projects. Which leads to the question: "Do I use folders or projects?" Here's our advice:

If you want to store tasks that are basically reference materials or ongoing efforts with no end date (e.g. marketing ops best practices, blog posts, or customer case studies), then use a Folder.

If you want to store tasks that are part of a finite effort that has a clear start and end date (e.g. "Dreamforce 2020 campaign," or "New user email - Q2 - 2017"), then use a Project.

Use folders when you:

• Have tasks with no end date
• Need to file reference materials or random tasks
• Need to store tasks that you look at regularly because they involve operational work

Use projects when you:

• Have tasks with a clear end date
• Have tasks that you won't need beyond a specific event
• Need to produce reports on tasks

Questions? The Help Center has it all: When to Use: Tasks, Subtasks, Folders, and Projects

2. What does sharing in Wrike mean?

Sharing in Wrike is the same as giving others access to your task. However, just because they have access to the tasks doesn't mean they know it exists. If you want them to know about it, @mention them in the comment field so they get a notification in their Wrike inbox.

Here's a good way to think about it: the only reason to keep a task private is when it's a personal reminder or a to-do list for your eyes only. In that case, keep it in your personal folder. But *all* other tasks should be filed in the proper company or departmental folder so your colleagues can find it by searching if need be.

Not sure what personal vs. company folders are? This is a best practice suggested during your team's initial Wrike setup: that your entire organization should have a public folder system organized by department or customer and all work should be filed away in the proper folders. But each Wrike user should also have a private folder for organizing his or her own private reminders, tasks, notes, and stuff. In short: every task has a home.

Need more guidance? Read the Help Center article on sharing tasks.

3. How and where will I be notified when updates are made to tasks?

Most new users in Wrike are quite concerned about how they are going to be notified when they use Wrike collaboratively. Will I or my coworkers get a ton of notifications? Will we have to enable notifications or do they come automatically? Will I get notified in email, in Wrike, or both? Does that mean everyone in the company can see what I'm doing? What about mobile, will I get notified there as well?

Here's how notifications work:

• When you follow a task, you can see updates to the task in your Stream view.
• You or your teammates will get notifications in your Wrike inbox only when you are @mentioned.
• If you have Wrike on your mobile device, then yes, you will receive the same Wrike inbox notifications on your device. You can change these alert settings on your mobile.

4. Did I just delete all my tasks?

If you've ever returned to a folder you know is full of your tasks, but then see nothing in there, don't panic! By default, Wrike displays tasks that are “All active” and assigned to anyone ("TO: All"). You'll see these filters under your folder title.

You may have recently done a search for tasks that are under another status (e.g. "Completed" or "Canceled") and left that filter on. This is why you don't see your active tasks. In order to return to the original view, you must clear the previous filter (e.g. "Completed" or "Canceled") by clicking the "X" next to the filter. This brings you back to the default view. Voila!

In the off chance that you actually did delete your tasks (it happens to the best of us), you can easily restore them from the Recycle Bin. No worries!

For more on the List view, sorting, and filtering of tasks, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar7MutUfzcM