No two kinds of work move through the same steps: a design project, a development sprint, and a writing pipeline each have their own stages. This walkthrough is about fitting Ceum to the work instead of forcing the work into a fixed template — you'll define the stages and fields a project actually has, then pull it up on a board that shows only what you need to act on today.
The customization is a one-time setup per kind of work. The payoff is every day after, when the board matches your real process closely enough that it tells you what to do next.
The goal
Make Ceum reflect how a specific project really runs — its own stages, its own kinds of tasks, its own details — and then work it on a board that hides everything that isn't your problem right now.
1. Define the stages the work really has
The default workflow is Backlog → Todo → Planning → In Progress → Review → Done — a reasonable starting point, but most work has stages of its own. Custom statuses let you set the ones your process actually uses.
On the task statuses page, build the columns your process actually moves through — for a content project that might be Idea → Drafting → Editing → Client review → Published. Flags carry meaning beyond the label:
- Finished marks the terminal stage, so Ceum knows a task is done (the same idea as a paid invoice being finished).
- Backlog and requires action let the app treat those stages specially — surfacing what needs attention, keeping the backlog out of your way.
Statuses aren't only for tasks: clients, projects, and invoices have their own status sets too, so each entity can move through stages that make sense for it.
2. Give tasks the right shapes and fields
A "task" is too blunt an instrument for most projects. Task types let you distinguish the kinds of work — Article, Bug, Design, Meeting — so a board isn't a wall of identical cards. (Bug, worth noting, is a task type, not a status — a bug still moves through your stages like anything else.)
Then custom fields add the details that matter for this project and nowhere else: a word count on articles, a severity on bugs, a URL on design tasks. They're defined per task type and sit on top of the built-in fields — you add what a given kind of task needs; the standard fields are always there and can't be removed.
If tasks and projects in this work relate in specific ways — blocks, depends on, duplicates — Relationship types let you name those links so the connections are explicit rather than implied.
3. Put it on a board
With the stages and shapes defined, the work wants to be seen as it moves. Open a kanban board: your custom statuses become the columns, and tasks are cards you drag from one stage to the next. Dragging a card is changing its status — the board isn't just a report of your process, it's where you run it.
Each board carries its own configuration: which status columns show, whether backlog and finished columns appear, and what each card displays — project breadcrumb, type dot, deadline, description, subtasks. Tune those so the board is exactly as wide and as detailed as this project needs, and nothing more.
Because boards are your own, you can keep several — one per project, or one per client — and switch between them. A board tuned to one project's stages beats a generic to-do list because it mirrors how that project actually flows. When someone without an account needs to see it, a share link gives them a read-only view of the board — or of a single task — that always reflects its current state.
4. Filter it down to what matters now
A full board is a map; a filtered board is a decision. Where the board's configuration is its permanent shape, a filter is a temporary lens on top: filters and sorting narrow it to just the slice you need to act on — this client, this task type, tasks tagged urgent, work due this week — so the twenty things you're not doing today get out of the way of the three you are.
Filters combine, so "design tasks for this client that are in review" is a single focused view. Set the filter that matches your current job and the board stops being a status report and starts being a worklist.
What you end up with
A project modelled on its own terms — real stages, meaningful task types, the fields that matter — running on a board you can filter down to exactly today's work. The setup cost is paid once; after that the board keeps telling you what to do next, because it finally matches how the work moves.