Install Onplana Tasks for Windows

Onplana Tasks for Windows keeps your work one keystroke away all day. It lives in the system tray, shows everything assigned to you across every project, lets you add a task from any app with a global hotkey, and tells you the moment an AI agent needs your input, without keeping a browser tab open.

It’s a companion, not a replacement: the heavy planning (Gantt, dependencies, governance) stays in the web app, one click away.

Install

1. Open onplana.com/download and follow the link for the Windows app.

2. Install it from the Microsoft Store, or download the installer if your machine can’t use the Store, then launch Onplana Tasks and sign in.

A Store install updates through the Microsoft Store, and there is nothing to check. An install from the downloaded installer updates itself: Settings → Updates checks, and Install and restart applies. Settings → About shows the version you’re running either way. The installer is signed by DevSoft Solutions, LLC. The app needs Windows 10 (version 1809) or later, 64-bit.

Using the app without an account, inviting people, starting a new project and opening a project in Onplana Schedule need version 0.3.39 or later.

Sign in

Click Sign in with Onplana. Your system browser opens on onplana.com for you to approve access, so your password is only ever typed on onplana.com, never into the app. The app receives a scoped access token that can read and update your tasks and projects, nothing else, and stores it in Windows Credential Manager.

The sign-in appears as Onplana Tasks on Windows under Settings → Connections → Your Onplana apps in the web app, separate from the browser extension and other devices, so you can sign each one out on its own.

Use it without an account

You can use the app before you have an Onplana account. On the first screen, choose Use without an account. The app remembers the choice and opens on a task list kept on this computer. Add tasks in plain language, from the app or with Ctrl+Shift+Space, complete and snooze them, change their priority and due date, pin them to My Day, and get due-date reminders.

Your tasks are saved in a file in your Documents folder, under Onplana Tasks. Uninstalling the app does not delete it, and it is backed up when File History or OneDrive backup is on. Settings shows the exact path under On this device, with Copy all, which puts every task on the clipboard, one per line, and Clear local tasks.

If you reinstall Windows or move to a new PC and restore your Documents folder, the app finds the tasks you kept on the other computer and offers to bring them in. It copies them and leaves the other computer’s file alone.

Projects, agents, issues, ideas and the inbox need an account, so they appear once you sign in. Invite and a task’s assignee are shown before you sign in, and clicking either explains that inviting people and assigning tasks need a free Onplana account. If you sign in from there, the app moves your tasks first, then opens the invite form on the project they moved into, or the task you clicked with the list of people to assign it to. If you kept your tasks on this computer, it tells you to open a project and use Invite there.

When you sign in, the app offers to move your tasks into Onplana: choose the tasks and a project, or let it create a project called My tasks for you. If you already own an open project called My tasks, they go there. New project in Onplana, beside it, is the way to a project with its own name or from a template. The moved tasks are assigned to you, and anyone who can see that project can see them. They leave this computer once they are in Onplana, and you can undo the move for 10 minutes. Completed tasks stay on this computer. Choose Keep on this device to leave them where they are; Move to Onplana in Settings brings the offer back.

Save your list as Project XML

Save as Project XML… in the list’s header saves your tasks as a Project XML file, which Onplana Schedule and Microsoft Project both open. Each task becomes a one-day task on its due date, tasks without a date start on the first day, and completed tasks go in as complete. To open the file in Onplana Schedule, choose File, then Open, and pick it.

Open a schedule file

In Settings, under Open a schedule file, press Choose a file and pick a Microsoft Project file (.mpp, .mpx or Project XML), a Primavera .xer, or a task list in CSV or Excel (.xlsx). Onplana Tasks lists its tasks with their dates and durations, and marks the milestones.

• Without an account, Add tasks to my list (the button says how many) puts the plan’s tasks, not its summary rows, in your list on this computer. Opening the same file again updates the tasks already there instead of adding them twice.
• Signed in, Create a project from this file opens the import in Onplana. Choose the file there and it becomes a project with the same tasks, dates and progress.
• The file is sent to Onplana only to be read. The uploaded copy is deleted within 3 days, and removed from backups 7 days after that.

Files up to 50 MB open. A large file can take up to a minute; Cancel stops it. If you do not see Open a schedule file, update the app. To see the whole plan as a Gantt chart and change it, open the file in Onplana Schedule.

See and complete your work

The task list groups everything assigned to you into Overdue, Today, This week, Later, and No date, with completed work from the last two weeks in a collapsible section at the bottom. The sidebar adds My Day (overdue, due today, plus anything you pin for the day), your Projects with open counts, and the Agents, Issues, Ideas, and Inbox views.

The list is keyboard-first: press / to jump to the add bar, J / K to move, X to complete or reopen, S to snooze to tomorrow, and ? to see every shortcut.

Click a task to open its detail panel: edit the title, due date, and description, tick off subtasks, reassign it to a teammate or an agent, add attachments (pasted screenshots work), and read or write comments with @mentions. Open in Onplana takes you to the full web app for anything deeper.

Work in one project

Select a project in the sidebar to see its tasks. The number beside each project counts your own open tasks there.

• Mine or Everyone: above the list, Mine shows the tasks assigned to you and Everyone the whole project, each with its count. A project opens on Mine when you have open tasks assigned to you there, and on Everyone when you have none. Your pick is remembered for that project on this device. An empty Mine offers Show everyone’s (N).
• Open a task that Mine would hide, from the Inbox, a notification or search, and the project shows Everyone for that visit only, so the task is in the list.
• Sort by Due date (the default, grouped by when tasks are due), Priority, Title, Newest created or Last modified. Every order but Due date is one list without groups. The choice is remembered on this device for every project; My tasks and My Day always group by due date.
• Created and Modified narrow the list to tasks created or changed Today, in the Last 7 days or the Last 30 days. Any time turns the filter off. This is remembered on this device too.

Open a project in Onplana

In a project, Open in Onplana in the project’s header opens that project in the web app, where its Gantt chart is one of the project’s tabs. It opens in the workspace the app is signed in to, even when your browser has a different workspace open.

Open a project from the web app

In the web app, Open in Onplana Tasks sits in the row above a project’s task list, and as an icon on each project card on the Projects page. It opens this app on that project’s task list. The app opens the project only if it is signed in to the same workspace and the project is in its list; otherwise it tells you why instead.

If the app doesn’t open within a couple of seconds, the installer from onplana.com starts downloading. Run it, then click the button again. The message also offers Or get it from the Microsoft Store. Either way, you stay on your task list.

A copy installed from the Microsoft Store may not answer the button yet: older Store versions can’t be opened from a link, so the button says the app didn’t open and downloads the installer. A copy installed from onplana.com answers it.

On an iPhone, iPad or Android phone the same button opens the App Store or Google Play instead, because the phone app can’t open a project from a link. The button doesn’t appear on Linux or ChromeOS, where there is no Onplana Tasks app, or inside Microsoft Teams.

Invite people to a project

If you own a project or are one of its project managers, Invite appears in the project’s header. Type one or more email addresses, one per line or separated by commas. Someone new joins your workspace as a guest and the project as a member; guests can be given tasks, complete them and log time. Someone already in your workspace is added to the project straight away. To make someone a full member of the workspace, invite them from the web app.

Inviting someone new can use a seat on your plan. If it would add a paid seat, people who can invite members to the workspace (Owners, Admins and Portfolio Managers by default) add it straight away; for anyone else, a workspace Owner or Admin is asked first. The app tells you what happened to each address.

People who can see every project in the workspace but aren’t on this one see Invite from the web instead, which opens the project in Onplana.

Give a task to someone who hasn’t joined

In a task assigned to you, the assign control offers Invite someone new. If they are already in your workspace, the task is theirs at once. If they are new, the task stays with you until they accept, then moves to them, and the task shows who it is waiting for. If you give it to someone else in the meantime, or they haven’t accepted within 30 days, it stays where it is.

When you can’t use it, Invite someone new is greyed out and says why when you point at it: only the project’s owner or a manager can invite people, and only to a task that is assigned to you.

Start a new project

New project in Onplana, on the + beside Projects in the sidebar and in the project list when you add a task or log an issue, opens New Project in the web app, in the workspace this app is signed in to. When you come back within the hour and exactly one new project has appeared, the app asks whether to add your tasks to it. If more than one appeared, it asks nothing, so pick the project yourself.

It appears only if your workspace lets you create projects. If yours runs new projects through a proposal, use Propose a project in the web app instead, or ask a workspace Owner or Admin.

Open a project in Onplana Schedule

In a project’s header, Schedule opens the project in Onplana Schedule, the free desktop app for durations, dependencies and the critical path. If it isn’t installed, Get Onplana Schedule opens the page to download it. Schedule asks you to sign in once, separately from this app. After you add three or more tasks to one project, some of them with dates, the app suggests Schedule once.

Ask what to focus on

What should I focus on? sits above your task list. Click it and Onplana’s AI names one thing to start with, in two to four sentences. Nothing is asked until you click.

It looks at your open tasks that are overdue, due today or due in the next seven days, and at any AI agent that is blocked waiting on you. With a project selected in the sidebar, the answer covers that project; otherwise it covers all your work. The card says which.

To answer, Onplana sends those tasks’ titles, project names, due dates and priorities, and the names of the agents waiting on you, to its AI provider: Anthropic’s Claude or Microsoft Azure OpenAI. See the privacy policy. Answers draw on your workspace’s AI allowance, and you can ask up to 20 times a day. When nothing is pressing, the app says so without asking the AI.

If an answer the AI wrote is inappropriate, click Report under it, or use Settings → Report AI content at any time, to send it to us. The button is hidden offline, when you have no open tasks, and when you use the app without an account.

Log your time

If your workspace uses time tracking, open a task and choose Log time. Enter the hours (1.5, 1,5 and 1:30 all work), pick the day, which starts on today and cannot be a future day, and add a note if you like. Your week shows the week grouped by day, each day’s total, and the week’s total last.

• One entry per task per day. Log time on a task you already logged that day and the app shows the entry that is already there, with Edit that entry, so you change it rather than add a second.
• Drafts can be edited or deleted. If your workspace approves timesheets, Submit sends the week’s drafts for review, and Take back returns anything still waiting for review. An approved entry cannot be changed here.
• Returned entries show why your approver sent them back. Edit one and it becomes a draft again, ready to resend.
• You log your own time only. Logging time needs a connection, so the Time row is hidden while you are offline.

No Time row? It only appears when your workspace includes time tracking and your copy of the app is up to date. If it asks you to reconnect, this device was connected before time entry was available, so choose Reconnect and sign in again. See Log and submit timesheets for plans and approvals.

File an expense

If your workspace uses Onplana Services, the add bar has a 🧾 button. Type what the expense was for and select 🧾: the expense form opens beside your task list, with your text as the description and the project from the add bar already chosen. Fill in the Amount (42.50 and 42,50 both work; leave out thousands separators), check the Currency, which starts on the project’s own, pick a Category and the Date, and select Log expense.

In the command palette (Ctrl+K), Log an expense opens the same form and Your expenses opens your list. The list is grouped by what needs doing: returned to you, drafts, waiting for approval, approved. Each group shows a subtotal per currency, never one figure across currencies.

• A new claim is saved as a Draft. Submit sends it for approval, and Take back returns one that is still waiting.
• Returned claims show why your approver sent them back. Resend sends one again.
• Approved claims can’t be changed.
• Filing needs a connection. Offline, the add bar is hidden, and the form opened from the palette says so and won’t file. Nothing is queued to send later, because a claim sent twice is a double charge somebody has to catch.
• The quick-add window you open with the global shortcut adds tasks only.

No 🧾 button? It only appears in workspaces with Onplana Services, and in version 0.3.33 or later of the app. See Track rebillable expenses for approvals and how claims reach the margin report.

Quick-add from anywhere

Press Ctrl+Shift+Space in any app to pop up a small quick-add window, type the task, press Enter, and get back to what you were doing. Inside the app, the add bar understands plain language: press Tab to preview the due date, priority, and project it read from your wording (parsed on your PC, no AI call), or press the ✨ button to have AI do a smarter parse. Paste a multi-line list and the app offers to add them all as separate tasks.

There’s no microphone button; press Win+H in the box to use Windows’ built-in dictation.

If another app already owns the global hotkey, Settings says so plainly and the tray menu’s Quick add task works instead.

The command palette

Press Ctrl+K to jump anywhere: switch views, open any project or task by name, quick-add, refresh, or open Settings. Type a few letters and press Enter.

Works offline

Completing, reopening, snoozing, and reprioritising keep working with no connection. Changes queue on your machine, survive a restart, and replay automatically when the app can reach Onplana again; anything that can’t be applied is surfaced rather than silently dropped. Creating and deleting tasks, and editing titles or descriptions, need a connection.

Hear about what matters

• An agent needs you: when a task you delegated to an AI agent becomes blocked, the app raises a native notification, once, not repeatedly. A While you were away brief on the Agents view sums up what finished and what’s waiting on you since you last looked.
• Teammate activity: mentions, comments, and assignments land in the Inbox and can notify natively.
• Daily reminder: one nudge at the hour you choose on days something is due. Reminders are best-effort while the app is running.

Quiet hours in Settings silence agent and activity notifications on a schedule you set.

The tray icon’s tooltip always shows where you stand, for example Onplana Tasks · 3 open (1 overdue) · an agent needs you. Closing the window hides it to the tray; the app keeps running until you Quit from the tray menu.

Log issues and capture ideas

Use the Issues view to log a problem the moment you hit it and move it through its lifecycle later, and the 💡 button in the add bar to save a passing thought as a private idea, no project needed. Ideas never mix into your task list.

Launch at startup

Turn on Launch at startup in Settings to start Onplana Tasks automatically when you sign in to Windows. If you later disable it in Windows Task Manager on the Startup apps tab, Windows doesn’t allow the app to turn itself back on; the toggle will tell you to re-enable it there.

Send feedback

Signed in, choose Send feedback in Settings, pick what kind it is, and write a title and the details. It goes to the Onplana team, not to your workspace. If you are the Owner of a Free workspace that has never had a trial, the thank-you also asks whether you want 14 days of Pro to try the paid features. Start the free trial opens Billing in Onplana on the web with the trial’s confirm open; nothing starts until you confirm there. See Try Professional for 14 days.

With the browser extension

The desktop app and the browser extension are the same companion in two places, and they work well together: the extension is best for capturing web pages as tasks while you browse, the desktop app for the always-on tray, the global quick-add hotkey, and offline work. Each signs in separately and each can be revoked on its own.

Tasks from a plan in Onplana Schedule

Onplana Schedule can copy a plan’s tasks into this app: File > Add to Onplana Tasks… there opens Onplana Tasks, which asks before adding anything, for example Add 42 tasks from Website relaunch?, and says how many are new and how many it already has. Add puts them in your list; Not now adds nothing.

They go to the list the app keeps on this computer, the one it opens with Use without an account on the sign-in screen, and nothing leaves your computer. If the app is still on that screen, it says a plan is waiting. Signed in, it says that nothing was added. Sending the same plan again updates the copies instead of adding them twice. See Add the tasks to Onplana Tasks.

How it connects

The app talks to Onplana over the same secure surface as the browser extension and the mobile app, with a token scoped to your tasks, your projects and your own time entries. Sign out from the sidebar to disconnect this device, or sign it out from Settings → Connections → Your Onplana apps in the web app.