Learn about the "to-do list" workflow feature which helps organise & prompt tasks on busy workflow phases
Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes
Sections in this Article
Checklists in Action
Once a card has arrived at a phase with checklists, Gatekeeper will show these as a to-list at the top of the card:
In order to Check off an item from the list, a Phase Owner must simply click the box/text:
💡 As seen in the above gif, hovering over a completed checklist item will show which user completed that action and when did they mark it as complete
If the additional Checklist setting - ⬇️ configuration shown below ⬇️ - has been enabled to prevent form submissions, actions cannot be completed and cards cannot progress until all checklist items are ticked
When this is the case, users will get a warning message, preventing them from completing their actions until the checklist is fully completed:
As seen in the below gif, users can still Reject cards while checklists are incomplete
This is because reviewers may need to send forms back (or terminate them entirely) without completing all of the tasks at that phase of a process
💡 When this "prevent submission" setting is enabled, actions on cards with incomplete checklists are affected as follows:
Users can Update a Form and hit ✅ Save
Users can Update a Form but cannot hit ✅ Submit
Users cannot hit ✅ Approve
Users can hit ❌ Reject
Users can complete actions (such as Create Contract, Update Supplier)
SLA Timer Transitions can still move cards automatically
Checklists from My Dashboard
If you prefer to view all approvals from the My Dashboard view (rather than navigating from emails & the kanban board), it is also possible to tick off checklist items from the mini-card summary:
As seen in the above gif, the 'Prevent Submission' setting will carry over to this view as well!
Configuration
Adding a new checklist
Step 1) Go to the phase where you wish to configure a list & click to edit
Step 2) Navigate to the Checklist Tab
Step 3) Begin typing in the Add Item text box then hit Add to store your new checklist item
Step 4) Repeat Step 3 until all items have been added
Step 5) Hit ✅ Save to store all your Checklist configuration
Making Checklists Mandatory
If you want to make your checklists mandatory for your users to be able to submit forms from their phase, you can enable the below setting
Step 1) Go to the phase where you wish to configure a list & click to edit
Step 2) Navigate to the Checklist Tab
Step 3) Underneath your checklist items, tick the below setting:
☑️ Card can only be submitted if all checklist items are complete
Step 4) Hit ✅ Save
Editing Existing Items
Step 1) Go to the phase where you wish to configure a list & click to edit
Step 2) Navigate to the Checklist Tab
Step 3) Alongside the Checklist item you wish to change, hit 
to edit or to 
remove it
Step 4) Hit ✅ Save
NB. Checklists are applied to Workflow Cards at the point they arrive on a phase
➡️ Therefore, if you add/edit/delete Checklist items to a Phase's configuration settings where the phase already contains active cards, these cards will not have their checklists retroactively updated
Configuration FYIs & Notes
💡 Unavailable Phases 💡
Checklists cannot be configured on Start or "Done" phases of workflows
Start Phases, because they are designed to be Form-initiation phases. Generally all the prompts you provide to your users here should be take the format of form fields (including the Mandatory Field Settings)
Done Phases, because they should be phases where no further actions need to take place. If you still have tasks to complete for your Workflow process to be complete, we recommend configuring these for a Live phase!
💡Checklist Memory 💡
If a card leaves then re-enters a phase with Checklists configured, Gatekeeper will not remember any previously checked items.
Checklists are applied "fresh" each time a card arrives on a phase
💡 Email-Approval & Checklists 💡
If you enable "Approval Via Email", you may run into issues. This is because Checklist items cannot be ticked via email and - ⬆️ as you can see above ⬆️ - it is possible to prevent cards from being approved with unchecked items
Therefore, if you set your Checklists to be Mandatory, Gatekeeper will prevent "Approval Via Email":
FAQ 💬
Q: Do checklists show in the card history?
A: Not in a card's History tab
💡 If this is an important feature for you, please upvote this Ideas Forum post
However, hovering over a checked-item (before a card moves phases) will show who checked that item with a timestamp
Q: Can we add checklists to Vendor Portal phases?
A: No. Currently Gatekeeper will allow you to configure them, but since Vendor users see a more condensed workflow card view, they will not see anything you configure here
For tasks which you absolutely require your Vendor Portal users to complete, we recommend using mandatory form fields
For Example
If you need to ensure they attach a specific document, use an Attached File form field and set this field to Mandatory
If you need to ensure they have completed an specific process, use a Dropdown form field with only one option ("✅") and set this field to Mandatory
Q: We have Parallel/Conditional Approvers enabled. Can we conditionally assigned checklists to specific users/teams?
A: Not currently. With the current feature version of Checklists, any approving user can check any item
If this feature enhancement is important to you, please upvote the below ideas forum post
Additional Reading 📚
See the basics of adding new phases to a workflow and all the key configuration steps required
See the different types of approvals & how to configure these for your workflows