Short answer

Filter the task list to today and switch on hide completed tasks. The list shows only what's left for the day; as the operative ticks each one off, the list shrinks. It's clear, satisfying, and stops accidental double-completion. To review or audit later, un-tick hide completed to bring the day's finished jobs back into view.

The mobile task list showing the day's inspections and jobs with type badges, To Do status and Today due chips
The operative's day: a short list of what's due, nearest first if you want it

Detail

The task list is built around a due window — Today, This week, Next 30 days, or Overdue — plus an assigned-to filter (Me / Unassigned / Other), so an operative's default view is their own tasks due this week, not everything the council has ever scheduled. (There's deliberately no "show everything" option any more — on large accounts it made the app crawl.) Two filter habits make daily life sane:

1. Set the due window to Today. Only the day's scheduled tasks show — what the operative actually has to do now. Open the filter panel (the sliders icon, top right of the task list).

2. Hide completed tasks. As each task is ticked off, it disappears from the list. Two benefits:

  • The remaining list shrinks visibly during the day, which gives operatives a clear sense of progress.
  • There's no ambiguity about what's still outstanding — every row in the list is "to do".

Other useful patterns:

  • Due-date ordering. The task list is sorted by due date by default — soonest first — so the most urgent work always sits at the top, whether or not the Today filter is on. This is what makes the list double as a "what's coming up next" view without any reminders or notifications. (In the web app, inspections and jobs are ordered by due date too.)
  • Nearest tasks. With offline mode now live (the June 2026 v2.0 rebuild — see Does the Civic.ly mobile app work offline / with no signal?), operatives can sort by nearest-to-me using the device's location, so the work in front of them surfaces first. The routine's walking order (set at routine creation — see What's the bulk-select workflow for creating a routine over many assets?) does the same job where you want a fixed sequence.
  • Swipe to complete. A right-swipe on a task marks it done in one gesture. Faster than tapping in.
  • Press and hold for the checklist. Pressing and holding a task pops its checklist up from the bottom of the screen, so the operative can answer it (e.g. tap the bin-fullness %) without opening the full task detail. Do the checklist first, then swipe to mark done.
  • Photos and forms inline. Where the routine has a form template (e.g. bin fullness), the operative records the reading inside the task; no need to go elsewhere. Photos for any defects raised inline.
The task filter panel: sort by due, nearest or priority; due window Today, Week, 30 days or Overdue; assigned to Me, Unassigned or Other; task type toggles and hide completed
The filter panel — due window, assigned-to, task types, and hide completed

Watch-outs

  • Don't do inspections by opening the Routine. The most damaging mistake we've seen: an operative opens the routine on the app (which shows all its related records — e.g. 27 items, all green) and works through that list. There's no per-item completion state on that view, so they can't see where they're up to; raising a defect from there also bounces them out of the routine. The fix is the workflow above — in the task-list type filter, turn Routines off and keep Inspections / Jobs / Defects on, then hide completed and sort by due/nearest. The operative then just works a shrinking list of their own sub-tasks and swipes each to pass. (A Swaffham operative had been doing it the routine way for weeks and found the app almost unusable until shown this — it's a high-value five-minute fix.) The routine layer is a supervisor concept; field users should rarely have the routine itself assigned to them.
  • An operative seeing yesterday's incomplete tasks usually means the Today filter is off, or yesterday's tasks were never closed. Either is worth fixing — yesterday's not-yet-done tasks should be reassigned or formally cancelled rather than left to drift.
  • A manager who also does the work sees everything. A supervisor/manager account has broad permissions, so on the mobile app it shows every task across the whole organisation — not just their own. To cut it down to what's in front of them: sort by nearest (in the building you're working in, only that building's tasks surface), hide completed, and turn off the task types they don't need. The Assigned to → Me filter now does the heavy lifting: even an account that can see everything can work from just its own list. Managers can also pick a team member under Assigned to → Other to review that person's day. If it's still noisy, the fallback remains a second, non-manager account for field days.
  • Broad (ANY) permissions make the app slow to load, not just noisy. With org-wide task permissions, the app pulls every task in the organisation — completed, all future, and defects/bugs — and since offline mode now caches data on the device, that can be thousands of rows and take a long time to load, then feel sluggish. The best fix for a field worker who only needs their own jobs is to scope their inspection and job permissions to OWN (not ANY) — they then load only tasks assigned to them, which fixes both the clutter and the slow load. (Keep asset permissions broad if they're capturing assets — it's the task scope that drives the volume.) The filter combo above (Today + hide completed + drop unused task types) is the quick in-app relief; the permission change is the durable fix. A field asset-capturer at one council had the app loading ~3,768 tasks until his job/inspection scope was set to OWN. Separately, work is under way to limit how much the app loads regardless of permissions.
  • "Hide completed" is per device, not per user. If an operative borrows another's phone, the toggle state may not match. Show them where the toggle is.
  • Operatives can now reset their own password on the mobile app. On the app's login screen they tap Forgot password?, enter their email, and set a new password using the code we email them — no need to switch to a browser any more (this used to be app-unsupported). See How do I reset a Civic.ly password?.
The filter panel with Assigned to Other selected, showing a list of team members to choose from
Managers: pick a team member under Other to see their list
A task's location section with Show on Maps, Directions in Maps and Change Location buttons
Every task can hand you to your maps app for directions