Tasks are the to-dos sales and service teams log against people and records. They have surprisingly few platform requirements — the friction comes from the Activity Composer's UX rather than the data model.
- Open the Activity composer
Tasks are almost always created in context — from a Contact, Lead, Opportunity, or Account record's Activity tab. The standalone Tasks list is for managing your queue, not creating.
- Click New Task
On the Activity tab, click the New Task button (or use the Activity composer's task icon). The composer opens inline.
- Enter the Subject
What needs to be done — keep it under ~60 characters so it's scannable in list views and reports.
- Set Due Date, Priority, Status
Due Date defaults to today, Priority to Normal, Status to "Not Started" — adjust as needed. None are platform-required but all are required by every standard layout.
- Assign To
Defaults to the creating user. Reassign to a teammate if you're logging the task on their behalf.
- Save
Save commits the Task. The related record (Contact, Opportunity, etc.) is auto-linked because you launched from its Activity tab.
Not platform-required, but required by every standard Task page layout. The Activity Composer won't save without it.
- Tasks completed (Status moved to a closed value) cannot be reopened in the standard UI unless an admin enables the "Allow Users to Edit Closed Tasks" Activity setting.
- Tasks have no record types by default — every Task uses the same layout. Enable Activity Record Types in Setup if you need to split layouts by team.
- WhoId (Lead/Contact link) and WhatId (related record link) are mutually constrained — a Task can have one of each, but not two Whats. Plan accordingly when bulk-creating via Apex or Data Loader.