Can check boxes be used for non tasks?

[John Tyler]

I inherited a system with many forms created from templates. They include many (MANY) check boxes. These check boxes show up as tasks in my task reports. Is there a better way to use the check boxes so they do not generate tasks? I still want to use the check boxes to create tasks in the normal way, with a date, name and action. 

[Diego]

Hello there, @John Tyler !

Currently, the only way to use the checkboxes is with the Task List macro. Which does create tasks.

When we use the [] shortcut or directly click to insert the task list, a macro is inserted into your page. One trick that we can use is to filter out those “non-tasks” is by using labels. For example:

1. Create a label named real-tasks
2. Label all pages that contain real tasks with this label
3. Create a new page
4. Insert the task report macro
5. Set it to only show pages with the real-tasks label

Now, I would love to understand more about your use case of the checkboxes, John. Here we have some questions that will allow this to happen:

1. What is the current objective of using those checkboxes in your templates?
2. Is it possible to actually implement a labeling policy for your pages?

If the objective of using the checkboxes is pure aesthetic, we could look for some emoji to replace them.

Let us hear from you, John. Looking forward to your reply!

[John Tyler]

Hi Diego, Thanks for the note.

We use check boxes to create a check list.

For example: on our purchasing form, "is this a new vendor" [check]

When conveying a procedure to another department, we give them a check list of things to do. We do not assign a resource but simply provide the list of things that need to be done.

I hope that clarifies our use of a check list.

Thanks

John

[Tim Hargan]

Seems like a silly thing not to have and quite frankly its unbelievable that you have to ask that question.   In establishing requirements that are very similar from customer to customer it would be normal to create list of options and check the ones that apply instead of having to write the same things every time or use words to indicate the options.

[farleylai]

Checkbox is useful to present options with zero or more being selected. It should not always imply tasks. Filtering with additional labels is a bit tedious as a workaround. Something like double square brackets [[v]] could be more intuitive to separate from tasks.