# Task Actions with Athena

Ask Athena to turn a file note or advice document into tasks, add its steps to a task's checklist, mark tasks complete and link documents to tasks.

Task actions connect Athena to your client's [Tasks and Workflows](https://docs.paradino.ai/tasks). When a document lists things that need to happen next, Athena can lift them onto the right task for you. When you tell Athena a step is done, it can tick it off. Nothing changes on a task until you confirm it.

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> Task actions are available when your plan includes Tasks and Workflows, and only in a chat with a client selected.

## Where you can use task actions

You can ask Athena to work on tasks in three chats: [Workspace](https://docs.paradino.ai/workspace), [Meeting summary](https://docs.paradino.ai/meetingsummaries) and [Strategy Assist](https://docs.paradino.ai/strategy).

> In a Statement of Advice running in Auto mode, task actions stay off until the document has been generated, so the run is never interrupted. Once the document exists, you can ask for task actions as normal.

## What you can do

* **Create tasks from a document's action items.** Athena reads the document and proposes a handful of tasks, grouping steps that belong together (the same product, form or party) into one task with a short description.
* **Create one task with a checklist.** Ask for a single task with every action item as a checklist step, or list the steps yourself.
* **Create a quick task in your own words.** Describe one task, optionally with a due date and who it's for, and Athena creates it straight away.
* **Add a document's steps to a task's checklist.** Athena finds the task linked to the document's template, or asks which task to use, and proposes the steps in the order the document lists them.
* **Mark a task as complete.** Name the task, or ask which of the client's open tasks the document completes.
* **Tick off checklist steps.** Tell Athena a step has happened, and it offers to tick the matching checklist item.
* **Link a document to a task.** Whoever opens the task can then jump straight to the document.
* **Check on a client's tasks.** Ask what's open for the client, which stage each task is at, and how far along each checklist is.

## Ask for the menu

Ask a general question about next steps, such as "what can you do with these action items?", and Athena shows a menu of the task actions that apply to this client right now:

* Create tasks from this document's action items
* Add the steps to a task's checklist (named, when the document's template is linked to a task)
* Mark a task as complete
* Link this document to a task

Tick one or more options and select **Next**.

## Ask in your own words

If you already know what you want, just say it. Athena goes straight to that action, with no menu.

## Review and confirm on the card

Most task actions come back as a card beneath Athena's reply, with a checkbox for each proposed change. When you picked several options from the menu, each one gets its own tab.

1. **Review the changes.** Athena ticks the changes it recommends. Other candidates, such as open tasks you might also want to complete, are listed unticked for you to pick. Untick anything you don't want.
2. **Choose who it's for.** Each new task has an **Assign to** picker. Leave it as **Unassigned** or pick a colleague.
3. **Select Confirm.** Nothing is written to your tasks until you do.

Once confirmed, the card locks as a record of what was applied, and Athena replies with a summary and a **View tasks** link.

A few actions skip the card because your request is already the confirmation:

* **A task you describe yourself** with no checklist steps is created straight away.
* **A task you name to complete** is completed straight away when there's one clear match.
* **A single change**, such as linking the document to the one open task, comes back as a yes-or-no question in the chat instead.

## When Athena asks which task

If there are several tasks the steps could go on, Athena shows the candidate tasks as buttons rather than guessing. Pick one and it carries on with your original request. Tasks are named with their workflow in brackets, for example **Implementation (Onboarding)**, so you can tell apart tasks with the same title in different workflows.

## Example prompts

### In a meeting summary

* Create tasks from this file note's action items.
* Create a task for Sarah to chase the rollover paperwork by Friday.
* Add the action items from this file note to the Discovery task's checklist.
* Create one task called "Prepare for the review" with these steps: request super statements, update the cashflow model, book the review meeting.

### In the Workspace

* What tasks are open for this client?
* Add the steps from the Implementation Checklist to the Implementation task.
* Mark the Peer review task as complete.

### In Strategy Assist

* Create a task and add checklist items for all the adviser action items in this Statement of Advice.
* Add the implementation steps from this Record of Advice to the Implementation task.
* Link this Statement of Advice to the Advice preparation task.
* Make a task for Bobby to book the presentation meeting next week.

## What Athena will and won't change

Task actions are designed so Athena only adds to your tasks, and you stay in control of everything else:

* **Only your tasks.** Athena acts on open tasks assigned to you, unassigned tasks, and tasks held by a team you belong to.
* **Steps come from the document or from you.** Athena never invents steps or tasks that the document doesn't contain.
* **Existing items are left alone.** Athena never removes, rewords or unticks an existing checklist item unless you tell it a step was reversed. Items already on the checklist are skipped, not duplicated.
* **Up to 20 items per checklist.** If a checklist would go over the limit, the card shows which items won't fit. You can untick current items on the card to make room.
* **Automatic tasks complete themselves.** Tasks set to auto-complete in the workflow (for example, when a Statement of Advice is generated) aren't offered for manual completion. Athena tells you they'll complete on their own.
* **Not available yet:** reassigning, editing or deleting existing tasks. Use the [Tasks page](https://docs.paradino.ai/tasks) for those.

## Best practices

* **Link workflow tasks to their documents.** In a [workflow](https://docs.paradino.ai/tasks#defining-workflows), set **Populate checklist from…** on a task to the document type or template that feeds it, for example an Implementation Checklist for the Implementation task. Athena uses that link to pick the right task without asking.
* **Name the task when you know it.** "Add these to the Implementation task" skips the which-task question.
* **Name the person when you want it assigned.** Athena only assigns a task to someone you name; it never picks an assignee for you.

[Read about Tasks and Workflows](https://docs.paradino.ai/tasks)