Mark a Task Not Applicable
Marking a task as Not Applicable records that a step does not apply to this particular run of the checklist. The step is cleared out of the way and reported distinctly from work that was actually done.
Every task in a checklist holds one of three statuses — Incomplete, Complete or Not Applicable. Use Not Applicable when the work genuinely does not apply; use Complete a Task when the work has been done.
For everything that depends on task completion — releasing halt tasks, the progress bar, whether the checklist counts as complete, and the Analytics completion figures — an N/A task counts as complete. Marking a task Not Applicable is not the same as leaving it outstanding.
The distinction between Complete and Not Applicable is preserved for display and in one dedicated Analytics figure. Everywhere else, the two behave identically. Each section below spells out which applies.
When to Mark a Task Not Applicable
Typical reasons a step does not apply:
- A step that only applies to certain customers, regions or products, in a run where it is not relevant.
- A step covered by an exemption or a waiver on this occasion.
- A step made redundant by a decision taken earlier in the process.
If a step routinely does not apply to whole categories of run, consider hiding it automatically with conditional logic rather than relying on each user to mark it Not Applicable. A hidden task needs no decision from the user at all.
Enabling Not Applicable on the Template
Not Applicable has to be switched on for the template before the buttons appear in its checklists. The setting is Tasks Can Be Marked N/A in the template menu, and it is on by default for new templates.
When it is switched off, neither the Mark Not Applicable nor the Mark Applicable button is rendered in any checklist derived from that template.
Who Can Mark a Task Not Applicable
No permission is required, and in fact fewer checks are applied than when completing a task.
| Role | What they can mark Not Applicable |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Any task in any checklist. |
| Member | Any task in any checklist they can open. Not restricted to tasks assigned to them. |
| Guest | Tasks that are assigned to them. |
As with uncompleting a task, neither Checklist.Menu nor the checklist permission level governs this. View But Not Run does not prevent it.
A greyed-out task cannot be changed. That happens when the task is assigned exclusively to other users, or when it sits behind an incomplete halt task.
How to Mark a Task Not Applicable
- Open the checklist and select the task in the tasks list.
- Click the red Mark Not Applicable button in the Task Content area, next to Complete Task.
You are not asked for a reason or a comment, and there is no confirmation prompt.
Mark Not Applicable is hidden once a task is complete. To mark a completed task as Not Applicable, uncomplete it first, then mark it.
Returning a Task to Incomplete
While a task is Not Applicable, a green Mark Applicable button appears in the same place. Click it to return the task to Incomplete. It is a paired button rather than the same button relabelled.
Ticking an N/A task's checkbox from the tasks list, a tag page or the Library also clears the Not Applicable status, because those routes set completion and applicability together.
A task can also be set to this status through the API, by sending a status of NotApplicable to the Update Task Status endpoint.
Required Controls
Required controls do not have to be filled in. Marking a task Not Applicable bypasses the required-field validation that blocks completing a task, both in the browser and on the server.
This is deliberate — the point of the status is that the work was not done, so there is nothing to record against it. Compare Complete a Task, where an empty required field prevents completion and shows an error.
How an N/A Task Appears
| Where | How it looks |
|---|---|
| Tasks list checkbox | A distinct third state, neither empty nor green-ticked. |
| Tasks list sub-text | Marked N/A by <name> on <date> in red, where a completed task shows Completed by <name> on <date> in blue. |
| Reports | A red minus-square icon, with a Marked Not Applicable on <date> tooltip, where a completed task shows a green tick. |
In Reports, Not Applicable takes precedence over Complete when a task could be described by both. The full order of precedence is Hidden, then Halted, then Not Applicable, then Complete, then the due-date states.
What Is Recorded
Marking a task as Not Applicable is written to the activity feed, showing who changed the status and when. The entry appears in both the task-level feed and the checklist-level feed, and is permanent — you can always see who decided the step did not apply.
Clicking Mark Applicable afterwards records an uncompleted task '<task name>' entry. There is no separate "made applicable" entry type.
Effect on the Rest of the Checklist
Custom notifications. Marking a task Not Applicable fires any custom notification anchored to that task with a trigger of Is Not Applicable or Status Is Changed. If the Slack integration is connected and configured to post when a task is marked not applicable, a message is sent there too.
A notification with a trigger of Is Completed does not fire when a task is marked Not Applicable, even though an N/A task counts as complete nearly everywhere else. Is Not Applicable is a separate trigger.
This matters if you use an Is Completed notification to hand work on to the next person — that handover is silently skipped whenever somebody marks the step Not Applicable. To cover both outcomes, either add a matching Is Not Applicable notification or anchor on Status Is Changed instead.
Conditional logic. Conditional logic rules trigger on the values entered into controls, not on task status, so marking a task Not Applicable does not by itself show or hide anything.
Halt tasks. Marking a halt task Not Applicable releases the halt and enables the tasks that follow it, exactly as completing it would. A checklist containing a halt task that does not apply to this run can therefore still be finished.
Checklist Completion and the Progress Bar
An N/A task is counted as completed in the numerator and left in the denominator. So a checklist of ten tasks with nine complete and one marked N/A shows 10 of 10, not 9 of 10 and not 9 of 9.
Consequently, if the only outstanding task is marked Not Applicable, the checklist becomes Completed and is stamped with a completion time. The progress bar and counts on the tag page and in Reports treat it the same way.
In Reports and Analytics
Not Applicable is shown distinctly wherever task status is displayed:
| Where | How it appears |
|---|---|
| Report columns | The task column shows Not Applicable. |
| Report filters | Not Applicable is a selectable task status filter value. |
| Analytics detail tables | The task status is shown as Not Applicable. |
| Library analytics | Counted in the per-task completion bar chart, shown in purple. |
In the calculated Analytics figures, however, N/A tasks are included with completed tasks:
| Metric | Treatment |
|---|---|
| Tasks Completed | Includes N/A tasks. |
| Completed Late | An N/A task counts as completed late if it was marked N/A after its due date had passed. |
| Avg Turnaround | Includes N/A tasks. In the per-user breakdown, the time is attributed to whoever marked it N/A. |
| Bottleneck Late / Overdue % | Includes N/A tasks, so marking tasks N/A after their due date can push this figure up. |
| Tasks Not Applicable | The one figure that isolates N/A tasks. |
Tasks Not Applicable overlaps the completed counts rather than being carved out of them. An N/A task is counted in Tasks Completed and in Tasks Not Applicable, so adding the two together double-counts. Do not treat them as mutually exclusive categories when building a report.
Can an N/A task be reported as Overdue? No. Once a task is marked Not Applicable it has a completion timestamp, so it can never reach the Overdue state — it becomes Completed Late instead if its due date had already passed. A task with a passed due date does show as Overdue right up until somebody marks it N/A.
Because N/A is displayed separately, a task that is regularly marked Not Applicable is easy to spot. A step that never applies is usually a sign that the template needs a conditional logic rule, or that the step should be removed.
Related Pages
- Complete a Task — the ordinary path.
- Uncomplete a Task — the shared Mark Applicable behaviour.
- Custom Notifications — Is Completed notifications do not fire for a skipped task.