Recurring tasks

Every library has routines that come around regularly: yearly stocktake, quarterly DIN standards review for new editions, weekly cataloguing of newly arrived journal issues. Instead of creating these tasks manually every time, you define them once — and Librario creates the concrete tasks at the right time.

Definition vs. instance

flowchart LR
  A[Definition] -- "Spawn time reached" --> B[Task instance]
  B --> C[Kanban board / Open column]

Two distinct terms matter:

• Definition. The template. It states what needs to happen, how often, and who owns it. Definitions are managed separately and do not show up on the regular task board.
• Task instance. A concrete occurrence created from a definition. Instances behave like any other task — they show on the Kanban board, have a state, a due date, and an owner.

Creating, editing, pausing

Manage recurring definitions under Tasks → Recurring. A new definition needs:

• Title of the resulting task (for example “Stocktake — start of quarter”)
• Frequency — weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly
• Day — which weekday, day of month, or day of quarter the task should spawn on
• Owner — must be an administrator or librarian
• Due in days — how many days after spawn the task is due

Definitions can be paused at any time — no new instances are created while paused, but existing instances stay on the board.

Three examples

1. Quarterly DIN standards review. Frequency “Quarterly”, day “1st day of quarter”, due in 14 days. Spawns a task “Check DIN standards for new editions” on January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1, due within two weeks.

2. Yearly stocktake. Frequency “Yearly”, day “1 February”, due in 30 days. Delivers the stocktake task right after the fiscal year end, with enough buffer to execute.

3. Cataloguing new issues of “Der Bauingenieur” (weekly). Frequency “Weekly”, day “Monday”, due in 3 days. Reminds the librarian every Monday to catalogue, scan, and link the issues that arrived during the past week to the journal’s master record.

What happens on spawn?

When the time arrives, Librario creates a concrete task instance from the definition — with copied description, priority, and computed due date. The instance lands in the Open column and is assigned to the owner from the definition.