Task types: the vocabulary of your maintenance

The type is the first thing you pick when creating a task, and the only piece of information you read from a distance. On the map a task is just a pin with an icon in it: the type is what draws that icon. In the table, it's what groups. In the filters, it's the most-used criterion.

In other words, your task types are the vocabulary your crew describes its work with. Too poor and everything ends up as "Other". Too rich and nobody finds the right one at creation time, in the rain, with gloves on.

Where: left navigation bar, under Administration → Task types.

Two families

Sentinel separates predefined types from custom ones.

The nine predefined types are installed when your place is created. They cover the universal trail problems:

You can't rename them, change their icon, or delete them. The only thing you set on them is which activities they're offered in.

Custom types are yours: a name, an icon, and the activities concerned. That's where the gestures specific to your network live — "Boardwalk to rebuild", "Pothole", "Missing marker".

The list

The section lives under Task types in the sidebar.

The two families are always shown separately, custom first. The search filters on the name, across both families at once.

Creating a custom type

The Create Custom Type button opens a three-field page.

The name is what the crew sees at task-creation time. Write the gesture, not the category: "Boardwalk to rebuild" gets picked faster than "Timber infrastructure".

The icon matters more than you'd think. It's what you see on the map, at 30 pixels, among fifty other pins. An icon clearly distinct from the nine predefined ones beats a subtle variant.

The activities decide where the type appears — that's the next section.

Nothing applies until you hit Save, and the app holds you back if you leave with pending changes.

The icon picker

The catalogue holds more than 700 icons: Sentinel's twenty-four house drawings, plus two full libraries (Font Awesome and Material Community). The icon you're after is almost certainly in there.

One trap, and it matters: the search works in English. Type bridge, not passerelle; snow, not neige; hammer, not marteau. Icon names come from the source libraries and aren't translated.

Activities decide everything

This is the section's central mechanic, and it holds for both families.

A type is offered at task-creation time only in the activities assigned to it. If you're working in mountain biking, you only see the types ticked for mountain biking. That's what keeps the creation grid short and relevant.

Three practical consequences:

A type with no activity is invisible. It stays in the configuration list, but nobody can create a task with it any more. Remember that: it's the retirement mechanism.

There is no delete. Once created, a custom type can't be erased — not from the web, not from mobile. That's deliberate: tasks already created with that type still exist and must keep a valid type. To take a type out of circulation, untick all of its activities. It disappears from the creation screens, and the history stays readable.

Turning an activity on or off affects the predefined types. When you disable an activity in the Activities section, its predefined-type configuration is dropped; re-enabling it makes Sentinel reinstall the nine types, all ticked. If you had unticked "Drain" for skiing, you'll find it ticked again. Custom types keep their setting intact.

The Segment case

"Segment" sits in the predefined list but doesn't behave like the others. It's the type for linear tasks: instead of dropping a point, you draw a portion of trail — a stretch to reshape, a section to brush out.

Two differences to know:

• In the creation screen it's presented separately from the other types, because the gesture that follows isn't the same: you draw a track instead of placing a pin.
• It is unavailable when you create a task from a photo or from a point on the map. Both of those flows start from a single coordinate; there's no segment to derive from it.

This isn't a limitation to work around: if you need to describe a stretch, start from the create button rather than from the photo.

On mobile

The whole section exists on mobile: browse, create, edit.

The path: Account → your place → Task types.

The content is the same as on the web — same two families, same activity badges, same 700-plus icon picker. Predefined types are likewise limited to the activity setting.

Mobile has the advantage of being on site: if your crew runs into a recurring case the current vocabulary doesn't cover, the type can be created during the outing rather than three weeks later.

Who can change the list

Task types fall under the Task types right in the place settings.

• With read: see the list, without the add button or editable fields.
• With read and write: create types, rename them, change their icon and their activities.

It's a right distinct from trails and activities. So you can hand the maintenance vocabulary to a field lead without giving them control over the network's structure. If access is missing, that's one to check in your role.

Three pieces of advice

Start with the nine predefined ones. They cover the essentials. Wait and see what lands in "Other": that's your list of custom types to create, written by use rather than by theory.

A dozen types, not thirty. The creation screen shows a grid; past a dozen you stop choosing, give up, and pick "Other".

Restrict the activities right at creation. A type that only makes sense in winter has no business in the bike grid all summer. It's thirty seconds at creation time, and a shorter grid for everyone the rest of the year.