Finding your way around

The Qivo wordmark sits at the very top. Below it, your organization's name — static text, not a switcher and not a menu: this is your organization, and even when someone outside it shares a project with you (§12) there is no mode to switch into. It used to open a small menu; everything in it (Organization / Team / User settings) is a page of the Settings screen at the foot of this same rail, so the name is now just the name. The one exception is a login that has been invited into someone else's project but has no organization of its own — there the well reads Create your organization… and opens that dialog. Below it, Search opens the search palette, then your Inbox (§11), My view and All projects — the last two are not pages but scopes: they highlight like a project row, keep whichever of the three views you were in, and have their own links. Then the PROJECTS tree lists projects with their sub-projects — only the project you're viewing stays expanded. Projects shared with you from another organization sit in the same tree, gathered under a small header naming that organization. Project rows carry a + (leads only — opens New sub-project) and a "…" menu ("New sub-project…" for leads, plus settings and Archived tasks), sub-project rows their own (settings and Archived tasks), and anyone who leads a team gets a + on the PROJECTS header for new projects. Pinned below the tree, Settings opens the settings screen (§10) on your own preferences, which is why no view carries a settings gear of its own. Its rail is short and every entry is a page: Organization (General, Billing, Users, Teams, Labels — Teams opens to anyone who leads one, the rest to org admins), Projects → All projects and Archived projects, and Your preferences. Teams and projects are listed on their page, not in the rail: Projects shows every project you can see — home organization first, then each organization that shared one with you under its own name — with each project's sub-projects as chips on its row. One team, or one project, has exactly one address; the list you came through stays highlighted while you are inside it. The archived-tasks page (§9) has no pinned entry — reach it from a project or sub-project row's "…" menu, which opens it already scoped to that project.

Top bar#

One row saying the same three things on every view, and it reads left to right as a sentence: what you are looking at, which way you are looking at it, and what you can do to it.

The left end is a breadcrumb. At project scope it is the project's icon and name; at sub-project scope the parent project's name comes first, then a chevron, then the sub-project's own — and the parent is a button, so one click takes you up to it. (A sub-project's name is often only meaningful under its parent: "Platform", "Billing".) The middle is the three-view switcher, centred on the bar, so it is in the same place whichever view you are on and whatever the project is called. At the right end sits New task — disabled, with an explanatory tooltip, while the project has no sub-projects.

Everything that narrows or arranges the board sits in a row of its own under that one, centred: the text filter, My tasks, Assignee, Priority, Stale and Focus (below), and last the layout switcher. The Roadmap carries the same controls in the same order in its own toolbar row — one centred group of the filters and then its own three buttons — with two of them taking less room there (below); and the Overview narrows by scope alone and carries no row at all.

Two things used to sit beside the name and no longer do — a completion bar and the lead's avatar. Both were facts about the scope wedged into a row of controls, and both are said properly on the Overview instead: completion by the Completion cell, which has room to write "2 of 25 tasks done" under it, and the lead by a Lead cell that gives the person a name rather than a 20-pixel disc. Nothing else lives on that end of the bar either: no settings gear (the sidebar's Settings entry opens the screen, and a row's "…" menu still deep-links straight to a project), and no notifications bell — your Inbox is where news reaches you, and a task's own history is in its task window. In All projects the title is "All projects" followed by how many projects it covers, and New task is gone — across every project there is nowhere in particular to put one. My view withholds New task for the same reason, but it carries no count: it draws only the projects you actually have work in, so a number spanning the rest would name lanes that aren't on screen.

All projects#

All projects answers "what is everyone working on?" without picking a project first. It shows the same Overview, Board and Roadmap over every project you can see — including projects another organization has shared with you (§12). It never widens your access: what it shows is exactly what the project list already lets you open.

What changes is the grouping, which rises one level. Inside a project, the board's lanes and the roadmap's tracks are its sub-projects; in All projects they are the projects themselves, and each task still says which sub-project it belongs to — printed on the board card, and on the roadmap as a sub-project band inside the project's track, so the timeline reads project → sub-project → task. The bands collapse exactly like tracks do, so you can fold a discipline away. The Overview's health table becomes one row per project, and clicking a row drops you into that project's board.

Creating a task needs a project, and this scope isn't one. A new task has to go somewhere, so every button here that would have to guess is gone: the New task button, the board columns' +, and the empty states' action. (The palette offers neither — it offers no commands at all.) Two ways to create anyway, both of which name a project: switch the board to Side-by-side boards and use a project's own + (only where your role can write in it), or open the project and work there. Creating a project or sub-project is unaffected — those pick their own home in the dialog. The Team strip's This project only toggle is gone too, for the opposite reason: across all projects, all work already is the scope.

One thing to know if you're a guest in someone else's organization (§12): you hold a separate identity there, so the Team strip lists that seat as its own person — the two aren't added up.

My view#

My view answers the other half of that question — "what is on my plate?" — with the same three views over the same set of projects, showing only the tasks assigned to you. If you hold a guest seat in another organization (§12), the work waiting for you there appears here too: it is one list of your work, not one per organization.

The grouping is the same as All projects (lanes, tracks and health rows are the projects), with one difference: a project you have nothing in simply doesn't appear — no empty lane, no empty track, no all-zero health row. Nor does a sub-project band with none of your work under it. The rollups count your tasks: the Overview's Completion and each health row read "n of m" over your tasks only, and a roadmap track's remaining hours are yours, not the project's.

Two filters are missing here on purpose: My tasks and Assignee — neither view's row carries them. The scope already answers "who", so one would do nothing and the other would only let you filter yourself down to nothing; no control here claims one of them is on either. The text filter, Priority, Stale and Focus all stay. Creating is withheld exactly as it is in All projects, and for the same reason — with one extra note: a task made from a side-board's + starts unassigned, so it won't land in this view, and Qivo jumps you to its sub-project so you can see it.

The three views#

Overview, Board, Roadmap — a segmented switcher in the middle of the top bar. Your last view, scope — All projects and My view included — and roadmap window are saved server-side per user, so your place follows you across devices and reloads.

Filters (Board and Roadmap)#

The same filters, in the same order, on both views: the text filter, My tasks, Assignee, Priority, Stale, Focus. On the Board they are a row of their own under the top bar, with the layout switcher last. On the Roadmap they share one centred row with Update Estimate, Milestone and Auto-correct; the view window is not in that row at all — it lives on the timeline itself (§6). On a narrow window the row wraps and those three verbs drop together to a second line.

The Roadmap's row is carrying three buttons of its own, so two filters take less room there. My tasks has no button — pick Me only at the top of the Assignee list instead, which is the same filter, and the Assignee button then reads "Me only" so you can see it is on. Stale moves into a Filter button beside the others, which wears a count when something behind it is on. Nothing is switched off and nothing is out of reach: both filters belong to the view state you carry between Board and Roadmap, so one you set on the Board still narrows the timeline — and you can see it there and turn it off there.

The text filter ("Filter tasks…") does a wildcard, multi-word search: every word you type must match somewhere in the task — key, title, description, status, priority, assignee name, labels, or (while it's blocked) the blocked reason — each word on any field. So "to do cable" finds a To Do task with "cable" in the title, and "lars emc" finds the EMC task assigned to Lars. Case and word order don't matter, and the box clears with its own ×.

The other four are My tasks (only yours), an Assignee picker — Me only at the top (the same filter as My tasks), then Anyone, then everyone, and you can tick several people — Priority, and Stale (only tasks untouched longer than the owning team's threshold). Each is a button that lights while it is on and says what it is narrowed to — Assignee reads the person's name, Priority the level — so a narrowed view says so while you are looking at the work rather than at the controls. The roster stays open while you pick, so you can choose several people in one visit; a priority closes it, being one choice. My tasks and Assignee are deliberately mutually exclusive: turning one on clears the other, and both are absent in My view, where the scope already answers "who" (§3).

Turning one off is done on the control itself. My tasks, Stale and Focus are switches — press again. Assignee and Priority open menus, so while one of them is narrowing something its chevron becomes a small ×: one press clears that filter and nothing else, and the rest of the button still opens the menu. The search box has its own ×. There is no button that turns everything off at once — three filters on is three presses, each where you are already looking.

Filtering hides whatever has nothing left to show. On the board that is a sub-project lane; on the roadmap it is a whole track and, inside it, a sub-project band — a project with no matching task drops off the timeline rather than sitting there as a heading over an empty row. What never disappears is the frame around it: the board keeps its status columns and the roadmap keeps its week grid, its window controls and its milestone flags. When a filter matches nothing at all, both say so in the same words — a small "Nothing matches your filters" note with a Clear filters button, which is the one place that still puts every filter away in one press.

Focus is different from the other filters, which is why it stands in the open on both views rather than folding into the Roadmap's menu: it hides Backlog and Done — on the board the two columns disappear entirely, on the roadmap their tasks drop out — leaving only work that's up or under way. It's off by default, nothing else turns it off, and like your view state it's saved server-side per user, so a focused board stays focused across devices and reloads. (A "Plan on roadmap" session always shows the task being planned, even when Focus would hide it.)

Search palette#

Open it with the sidebar Search button. It searches, and that is all it does: no commands, no shortcuts, and nothing offered up front — an empty box says "Type to search tasks and projects" rather than listing suggestions you didn't ask for. Typing fuzzy-searches tasks (by key and title, up to nine) and projects, each in its own section; a task row shows its key, title, status and project, and picking one opens it, while picking a project scopes to it. Arrow keys + Enter, Esc to close.

Every scope, view and task has a URL, and every one of them begins the same way: qivo.io/app/, then your organization's address (§10). So a task link looks like qivo.io/app/acme/i/qn-482, and a board like qivo.io/app/acme/board/p/3.

The name in front matters because task and project numbers are counted per organization: if another organization has shared a project with you (§12), your blend holds two QN-1s, and the address says which one is meant — qivo.io/app/their-company/i/qn-1. A few places aren't about any single organization — your inbox, the archive, My view, All projects, your account page all span every organization you can reach — and those carry a ~ instead of a name: qivo.io/app/~/inbox. It's a placeholder that no organization can ever be called, so it can't be confused with one.

Task links are permanent — any case, bare number, or full key all resolve, and the recipient always lands on a board that actually contains the task. Project URLs use a stable per-org number, deliberately not the renameable key. All projects and My view each have their own addresses (…/board/all, …/board/mine, plus …/board/all/i/qn-482 and …/board/mine/i/qn-482 while a task is open over one), so a reload puts you back on the task and in the scope. A task link you copy from there is still the short permanent form: it carries the task, not your scope. Opening a short link while My view is your saved scope keeps the view when the task is yours, and lands on the task's own project when it isn't — the promise that a link always shows you the task it names comes first.

Two caveats. A link to an archived task doesn't open it (archived tasks aren't loaded) — restore it from the Archive page first (§9). And links you saved before the move still work: the old #/… form is still understood, and the address bar quietly rewrites itself to the new one.

Keyboard, in brief#

Esc closes whatever is on top (popover → dialog → task window); Enter submits in single-line fields; L opens the label picker inside the task window; Ctrl/Cmd+S saves a description or comment draft; Ctrl/Cmd+K makes a link from the selection in the editor. (There are currently no app-level shortcuts for switching views or opening the palette.)