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Task Effort in Wrike

TL;DR

Effort is the amount of actual work time a task needs, while duration is the overall time span to finish it. New tasks don’t have effort by default, but adding effort helps with resource planning for action items. Tasks without effort are useful for things like notes or items that don’t require work time. Milestones can’t have effort because they don’t have duration. You can set all new tasks to include effort by default in Profile Settings → Tasks & Subtasks → Default Effort mode for new tasks, then save your changes.

Table 1. Availability - Legacy plans

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Table 2. Availability

Free Team Business Pinnacle Apex
Availability: Business, Pinnacle, Apex. ; Unavailability: Free, Team;

Overview

Effort is a task attribute that shows how much time is required to complete a task. It can be different from duration, which indicates the time period within which an assignee should complete the task.

For example, a task can span multiple days but require only several hours of work a day from each of its assignees.

Effort in Tasks

When you create a task, it doesn't have effort by default. Tasks without effort can be used as:

  • Action items that don't require time to complete.
  • Non-action items: meetings notes, specifications, etc.

To effectively manage your resources, specify effort for all action items which require time to complete.

Note

Since milestones don’t have a duration, effort can’t be applied to them.

Set Your New Tasks to Have Effort by Default

Effort_Allocation-Task_Effort_in_Wrike.png
  1. Click your profile picture 1 in your workspace's upper-right corner.
  2. Select Settings from the drop-down.
  3. Profile 2 opens by default.
  4. Scroll to the Tasks & Subtasks section. 3
  5. Click the drop-down field 4 under Default Effort mode for new tasks.
  6. Select the default effort type for new tasks.
  7. Click Save changes. 5

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