Qivo in one minute

The planner's browser tab is titled Qivo.

Private demo#

The homepage's Demo button opens a welcome page at demo.qivo.io explaining the private 24-hour demo. Press Create demo workspace to create a copy of Northstar Labs with sample projects, tasks and teammates. Qivo signs you in automatically as Nora without an email address or password. Opening the welcome page does not create a temporary login or workspace. You can change tasks, projects, scheduling and the sample team. Other visitors receive separate copies; copying a task link does not give them access to yours.

New demos start in the Blue theme with Image of the week as their Canvas background: the same approved weekly photo as the regular app, or its default photo when no weekly image is assigned. You can change your own demo's appearance in Settings → Your preferences.

If the demo cannot finish opening within 30 seconds, it shows a connection message and Retry. Retrying keeps the current demo login and deadline.

The banner shows the time remaining. A demo lasts 24 hours from creation; returning in the same browser resumes it without extending that time. Access ends at expiry and the server automatically removes the demo and temporary login, even with the browser closed. Deletion can take additional time while cleanup completes. Try again starts a fresh copy. Clearing browser storage loses the temporary login, and it cannot be recovered by email.

Sample people are fictional and cannot be invited to sign in. External agent connections, API credentials and additional workspaces require a regular account. Attachments and background images have a 5 MiB file limit and 50 MiB total demo storage; profile pictures keep their 2 MiB limit. The workspace banner's Sign up for Qivo link opens the regular signup flow without transferring the temporary demo's contents.

You sign in and land in your organization. The sidebar lists every project you have access to — each a family of sub-projects, and every task lives in exactly one sub-project. Three views cover a project — or every project at once, through All projects in the sidebar — or just your own tasks, through My view (§3): Overview (a health dashboard), Board (a kanban of the five statuses), and Roadmap (a week-grid timeline with a per-person Team strip docked underneath).

The dark interface uses near-white for names, titles, entered values and actions, with light grey for supporting dates and explanations. Light uses dark text on pale surfaces. The same hierarchy carries into task details, Inbox, search and settings. Square portraits have softly rounded corners and a consistent regular size, with larger portraits for prominent identities. Status icons, warning indicators and your chosen label colors keep their meaning.

Buttons and task links show a blue focus cue when you navigate with the keyboard, such as with Tab or the arrow keys. Mouse clicks keep those cues quiet, including after closing a task or starting a screenshot shortcut. Text fields still highlight their border while focused, and selection fields stay highlighted while their menu is open. Task-field, project-access and date pickers return you to their button when they close; a calendar leaves focus in place if you have already moved to another control. Selecting and dismissing with the keyboard keeps focus visible.

On wide desktop screens, navigation and the current content panel stay centered as one group, with equal outside margins. The sidebar stays beside the content on narrower settings, archive and empty pages too. View controls remain above the working area. Smaller screens use the available width. Phones use the navigation and page layers described below; wide desktop boards and timelines retain their own scrolling.

App updates#

When a new version is available, Qivo shows a small notice and automatically reloads after a short pause. New-task forms, unsaved descriptions and replies, pending saves and uploads, and active planning sessions hold the update until you finish or discard them. Keep a one-time key or recovery link open until you have copied it; those screens also hold updates. Qivo waits while you are using an input field or the tab is in the background. Reload now is available when it is safe to reload. The page keeps its current address. While editing, Hide notice clears the notice out of your way; the update stays queued and the notice returns when your work is finished.

If a view cannot load, you can return to the workspace or reload to try again. Reload stays disabled while an open draft or save operation needs to finish.

Desktop app#

Qivo also ships as optional Windows and Linux desktop apps. They use the same Qivo account and hosted planner as the browser, and Inbox notifications can appear as native operating-system notifications through the desktop's notification settings. Selecting a notification returns to the relevant Inbox view. The desktop app checks its configured release feed in the background and downloads a new version. It asks before restarting to install it; an update waits while Qivo reports an active draft or save operation. If editing starts before you click the update notice, the notice returns after editing ends. Qivo checks again before restarting; choosing Later still defers the update. Ubuntu users can install the .deb, Fedora/RHEL users can install the .rpm, and an AppImage is available as a portable alternative.

Using Qivo on a phone#

The bottom navigation keeps Inbox, My tasks, Projects and Sync close at hand. Sync opens Team sync (§8), on your own page when you own work in its scope, and appears when you belong to an organization. Opening the app without a page link starts in Inbox on a phone; links to tasks, projects and settings still open their named page. The same themes, Canvas background, status colors and permission rules apply. Controls have larger touch targets.

Projects, task lists, Inbox, Overview, Roadmap's agenda and Settings leave space above their first content, matching the gap between project cards.

Use the search icon in the top header to find tasks and projects. Phone pages have no separate project, task, Inbox or Archive search box. A text query entered in a desktop page does not narrow its phone view, including the landscape roadmap. Status and other filter controls remain available. Lookups inside selection pickers remain, including people, labels and task relationships.

My tasks shows your assigned work as a readable list, with active work ahead of backlog and completed tasks. Choose a status or open Filters to narrow it. The + action creates a task using the project and sub-project pickers. Projects also show their tasks as a list; tap a task to change its status, assignee or other properties.

Projects opens a directory with sub-projects and People & settings on each project. Open Manage people in project settings to reach the existing add-user/team controls and email invitation field. Your permissions determine which actions are available, just as on desktop. Project actions also reach sub-project creation and archived tasks.

Overview keeps the summary and metrics in compact panels and replaces the wide health table with sortable cards. Roadmap opens on milestones; Task schedule lists planned and unplanned work using the roadmap's visibility rules: Backlog is hidden, and Done appears only when its planned period overlaps the current roadmap window (§6). Timeline & team opens a full-screen landscape view immediately. When your phone is upright, Qivo turns that view sideways; turning the phone to landscape makes it upright again. You do not need to unlock the phone's screen rotation. Planning tools, dependencies, date-window controls and team utilization remain available. Back to agenda or browser Back returns to the same agenda section and planned/unplanned filter. If a Plan on roadmap session is active, Back cancels it and restores the dates from before that session. Confirm the plan before going Back to keep its dates.

Tap your portrait in the upper-right corner for the Settings menu. Preferences, organization settings, project settings and individual user profiles open as pages with Back controls. Under Your preferences, Profile, Appearance, Inbox and MCP access each have their own page.

You create a task and give it remaining hours, an assignee and a due date. The assignee is the person who'll do the work, or an agent user — an AI agent that holds a seat of its own and signs in with its own key, through the REST API or the MCP server (§13). You plan the task by dragging a bar on the roadmap — and Qivo immediately tells you whether that person will actually finish it in time, given everything else on their plate across the whole organization: nothing to see while the plan holds, yellow or red the moment it stops holding. Everyone else sees your change live. That loop — define the work, plan it, see the truth, adjust — is the product.