THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

How to Use
ClickUp
“Since becoming our first partner in 2018, ZenPilot has stood out as
the go-to solution for agencies who want to get the most out of
ClickUp.

Their commitment to truly solving for the customer and providing

the best customer experience is perfectly aligned with our mission at
ClickUp - and it shows up in their results and the feedback we
consistently hear about ZenPilot.”

Zeb Evans
Founder & CEO, ClickUp
Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Step 1: Creating a ClickUp Workspace 4

Step 2: Choosing the Correct Pricing Plan 5

Step 3: Adjusting Personal Settings 6

Step 4: Inviting Your Implementation Team 7

Step 5: Turning On Helpful ClickApps 9

Step 6: Building Your ClickUp Hierarchy 10

Step 7: Building Your ClickUp Templates 19

Step 8: Leveraging Custom Fields 32

Step 9: Leveraging ClickUp Views 37

Step 10: Training Your Team and Launching 46

Step 11: Working in ClickUp 48

Step 12: Optimizing, Optimizing, Optimizing 52

Looking For An ‘Easy Button’? 55

2
Introduction
ClickUp is rapidly becoming one of the most popular project management systems on the market.
With flexible pricing plans, robust features, extreme customization options, and the power to combine
multiple apps into one, it’s no wonder companies are making the switch.

But although ClickUp is one of the most powerful work and project management solutions on the
market, it can also be the most daunting for new users. ClickUp comes as blank canvas and there's a
million different ways to set it up.

If you want to actually "save one day per week" and unlock the visibility you were looking for when
you installed ClickUp, you'll need to set it up properly.

As ClickUp's first ever and highest-rated solutions partner, having helped close to 3,000 different
teams implement the platform, we've put together our ultimate setup guide for teams trying to make
the most out of their ClickUp Workspace. This guide will walk you through everything you need to
know when you're getting ClickUp set up for your business.

And if at any point you're ready to just hit the "Easy Button" and have ClickUp's highest-rated
https://www.zenpilot.com/call
solutions partner lead you through this process, book a call with my team here.

3
Step 1: Creating a ClickUp Workspace
Getting a ClickUp Workspace is relatively straightforward – just head to their website and click “Get
Started. It's FREE” or “Sign Up”.

Yes, ClickUp can be free!

You can use their Free Forever plan as long

as you want. Feel free to start with the Free
Forever plan to configure a few things in
your Workspace before upgrading later
(though I don't recommend using this plan
for very long because of it's limitations). www.clickup.com

After you sign up, you’ll land on the home screen of your fresh, new, and sadly, empty, ClickUp
Workspace. This will be your blank canvas for you to craft and mold to your workflows and processes.
So, be prepared to pull out your palette and put on your beret!

And as mentioned earlier, while the endless customization options are a huge pro for ClickUp, they can
also get a bit overwhelming. But don't worry, you're reading this guide so that you don't get
overwhelmed!

Let’s walk through exactly what you need to do tailor ClickUp to your needs, prepare it for your team,
and save one day per week!

4
Step 2: Choosing the Correct Pricing Plan
Before we get too far ahead, let's quickly discuss the different pricing plans available to help you make
an informed decision on what you'll need.

ClickUp offers 5 unique pricing plans - Free Forever, Unlimited, Business, Business Plus, and Enterprise.

For most teams, we'd recommend you get your team on the Business plan at minimum. There's a lot of
features missing in the Unlimited plan that can be extremely important for your business.

Yeah, I know, you'd think a plan labeled Unlimited wouldn't have any limitations, but unfortunately
there are a few. Unless you're a mighty team of 1-5ish, you'll want to upgrade.

For a more thorough evaluation of which ClickUp pricing plan is right for you, we suggest you read our
https://www.zenpilot.com/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-clickup-pricing-plan-for-your-agency
"How to Choose the Right ClickUp Pricing Plan" guide. This will walk you through every plan and
discuss the major advantages to upgrading to the next tier.

5
Step 3: Adjusting Personal Settings
After you've determined which pricing plan is best for you (you can always upgrade later so don't
stress if you haven't fully figured this out), it's time to adjust some personal settings in your ClickUp
profile.

This is important for every new user to evaluate and customize (especially the Notification Settings) to
ensure ClickUp is set up the way you want it.

Click on your Profile Icon in the top right corner and head to Settings first.

Under your My Settings, go through the sections like:

• Preferences: Choose light/dark mode, enable/disable hotkeys

• Notifications: Disable unnecessary email notifications (unless you want 1,000 emails from ClickUp a
day, this is important!)
• Customization: Change colors, profile pic, etc

Spend some time in notifications especially. By default, your inbox will get bombarded with emails as
activity happens. I’d disable almost all the email options since you’ll get notifications inside of your
ClickUp Inbox already.

The key is preventing notification overload early, or team members will get frustrated. You can always
tweak notifications later.

6
Step 4: Inviting Your Implementation Team
When it comes to project management software, it can be best to wait until your system is set up and
ready-to-go before inviting your team.

Oftentimes, these kinds of systems can take months to implement, and inviting your team a wee-bit
early can lead to stress, confusion, and even a failed project management implementation (hence why
3,000 teams have hired us to lead them through this process - it's not as easy as it seems).

We'd recommend that you invite your implementation team to start. This may be your leadership
team, project managers, and/or process experts that will be with you as you get ClickUp ready to go
for the larger team.

If you have questions about who should be on your implementation team, https:
book //www.zenpialot.call
com/call with one of our
experts to help set you up for success.

Trust me, the tech is great, but if you want ClickUp to work for you and your team, you'll need to make
sure you get everything set up correctly, build Templates, and properly train your team on the
software AND the expectations. The key to a success is combining the right tools, with the right
processes, and the right habits.

7
Anyways, I'm getting off of my soap box now, here's how to invite your team to ClickUp:

• Step 1: Navigate to your Workspace Settings and click the People tab.
• Step 2: Under the People tab, you'll see a nice big rectangle in the top right that'll allow you to
enter the emails for your team members. You can write down all the emails for those that you want
to invite and click Invite.
• Step 3: Decide who should be a Guest, Member, or Admin.
▪ I'd reserve your Guest seats for contractors, freelancers, or clients.
▪ Admin seats should be your leadership team or some assistants that would need access to
billing settings or inviting other members.
▪ Member seats are for everyone else!

Again, begin by inviting your implementation team to start. Depending on your plan, you'll start paying
for every member as you add them to the Workspace. Software costs can add up over time. You can
save a few extra dollars by only inviting certain team members at the start.

And as everyone get's in, make sure they understand their Permissions to prevent confusion about
what they can/can’t access.

You'll always want to provide onboarding tasks and courses to help the team understand what's
happening in ClickUp. Like I said earlier, ClickUp is great, but can be daunting for new team members.
Clarity = kindness. The more clarity you can provide the better. This is one of the biggest project
management lessons we've learned across our 3,000 different implementations.

8
Step 5: Turning On Helpful ClickApps
Now that you're ready to roll, let's dive in to some more technical instructions. We'll begin with
ClickApps!

Though you'll be prompted to decide on which ClickApps you'll want to turn on when you start
building your Spaces in ClickUp, it's important to understand what they are and what's available.

ClickApps add functionality to your ClickUp Workspace, so they’re invaluable for customizing to your
use case. These can be turned on or off at your Workspace level, or within certain Spaces (but more
on that when we talk about ClickUp's Hierarchy).

To see what's available and turn ClickApps on or off, navigate to you Settings (yet again), select
ClickApps, and scroll through your options.

Some examples of ClickApps are:

1. Time Tracking: You can track time directly in ClickUp!

2. Time Estimates: The perfect pair to Time Tracking. This is also important for workload visibility.
3. Email: You can actually send emails directly from ClickUp Tasks to centralize communication.
4. Pulse: How long was someone logged in to ClickUp today? Pulse will tell you.
5. Giphy: I only communicate with Gifs so this is 100% necessary and should be turned on in all
Workspaces.
6. Custom Fields: You'll need to have these turned on to customize your Workspace and create killer
Views (or even build a CRM in ClickUp!)

9
ClickApps help add some modularity to ClickUp. And as you and your team get more familiar with
ClickUp, you can turn more on, or leave them off depending on your preferences.

My biggest piece of advice - don’t go overboard by adding too many ClickApps yet. Focus on the
must-have basics first. And though it sounds enticing, you may be able to just turn ClickUp
Automations off entirely for now. We've seen too many teams get too wrapped up in all of the cool
features before learning and understanding the basics. The result? A whole lotta complexity,
confusion, and fires.

I'm not saying that'll happen to everyone, but sometimes K.I.S.S or keep it simple, stupid, is a great
way to live. You'll find it much easier to start simple, gain traction, build momentum, and take it one
feature at a time.

Step 6: Building Your ClickUp Hierarchy

Now, here comes the exciting part! Let's actually start building stuff in ClickUp.

The ClickUp Hierarchy is my favorite part of ClickUp. It's built in a way that serves every member of
your organization. When built correctly, your Hierarchy will play beautifully with Views to help your
individual contributors, project managers, account managers, directors, C-suite, and clients see exactly
what they need to see (but more on that later).

10
Why Does ClickUp's Hierarchy Matter?
Okay, I need to be real here again (another soapbox, sorry!). You should never, ever, ever, implement a
new software system without a strategy. This seems to be forgotten about with project management
systems. Business owners or leaders go and get a new project management system hoping that the
tech will solve all of their pains - it doesn't.

Ask yourself this - what are we trying to solve?

Some teams may be looking for some productivity improvements, but others may be focused on just
getting visibility in to profitability or project progress.

Your current challenges and goals will impact the way you construct your ClickUp Workspace
(especially the Hierarchy). The way you set it up will either provide you or restrict you from seeing
profitability, team utilization, contract statuses, project progress, etc.

This is exactly why we start every ClickUp implementation with a Project Management Blueprint. We
capture your goals, survey your team, understand your current challenges, and build you the exact
ClickUp structure you'll need to set yourself up for success.

“Now that we have the system [ClickUp] in place, my leadership team is able to
make decisions on data and facts vs. what we think is happening. Additionally,
now we have one system that tells us where we stand on any piece of work. ”

Kim Garmon Hummel

Chief Growth Guide, Sauce Agency

It may seem like it's not worth it now, but in a year from now, you'll potentially be lacking some critical
visibility in to your business and you'll wish you set everything up right the first time. Anyways, off the
soapbox...

11
An Overview of ClickUp's Hierarchy
Again, understanding the ClickUp Hierarchy is crucial both for setting up your Workspace properly as
well as taking full advantage of features like Views, Custom Fields, and Automations later on.

So let's take you on a tour of the Hierarchy to make sure you understand it completely.

Here are the main layers of organization within ClickUp:

• Workspace: When you join ClickUp, you create a user account and a Workspace. The Workspace is
the highest level in ClickUp's Hierarchy and is typically named after your business. All work is
organized within this Workspace.
• Space: Spaces are the next level in the Hierarchy and represent different departments or teams
within an organization. Users can create multiple Spaces to keep their work organized.
• Folder: Folders can be created within Spaces to group together lists and tasks. While not
necessary, Folders can be very helpful in organizing similar work. These often represent service
categories, smaller department categories, or in the client services use case, a client.
• List: Lists are where the work lives. Lists can be used to represent work categories, service lines, or
in the client services use case, a contract.
• Parent Task: Tasks are the actual work in your ClickUp Workspace. In most cases, Parent Tasks are
best when they represent a deliverable or project phase/milestone, but they can also live on their
own without Subtasks.
• Subtask: Subtasks are tasks that fall underneath your Parent Tasks. Subtasks can best be used to
represent actionable steps or tasks that need to be taken to complete the Parent Task (a
deliverable or project phase/milestone).
• Checklist: Checklists are the final level in the Hierarchy and can be added to any Task. They are
best used when they serve as reminders for someone. They'll help ensure your team follows your
process when completing a Task.

By using multiple layers in the Hierarchy, you'll keep your Workspace much more structured and
organized - which will pay dividends in the long run.

12
A Quick Hierarchy Example
To give you visual of what this may look like, here's a quick example...

Most client servicing teams - whether a marketing or creative agency,

consultancy, financial services, or accounting firm - all have three
main departments within their organization:

• Growth: Growth is where they grow their business - marketing,

sales, partnerships, etc. This is where they make their promise.
• Delivery: Delivery is where they serve their clients. This is where
they keep their promise.
• Operations: Operations is the biggest junk drawer in business.
This is where their people, culture, HR, finance, legal, etc. work lives. Everything that doesn't end
up in growth or delivery, ends up here.

The way that the ClickUp Hierarchy is then built to reflect this bucketing of work would be simple.
You'll have a Space for Growth, a Space for Delivery, and a Space for Operations.

13
Now beneath those Spaces we have our Folders and Lists.

The Growth Space would look like this:

• Space - Growth

▪ Folder #1 - Sales

◦ List #1 - Prospecting

◦ List #2 - Deals

▪ Folder #2 - Marketing

◦ List #1 - Website

◦ List #2 - Content

◦ List #3 - Email

Work is grouped together by department/team, broken into sub-departments, and then further
broken up in to work categories.

The Delivery Space would be slightly different, but it would look like this:

• Space - Delivery

▪ Folder #1 - Client X

◦ List #1 - Contract XYZ

◦ List #2 - Website Project

▪ Folder #2 - Client Y

◦ List #1 - Contract ABC

You can also leverage a Client

Management List in this Delivery Space
that will be the home for some
onboarding Tasks and Tasks that are Delivery related, but not related to a specific client.

Just make sure that every Task has a home to live. Task locations are important! Especially if you’re
tracking time and want to know where your team is spending their time, or how profitable a certain
or service is. Placing Tasks in random Lists (or even private Lists!) is the worst thing you can do. You’ll
lose a lot of visbility and insights for your business.

14
Lastly, the Parent Tasks and Subtasks would look like this:

• Parent Task - Blog Post

▪ Subtask #1 - Create Blog Post Strategy
▪ Subtask #2 - Review Strategy and Outline Blog
▪ Subtask #3 - Approve Blog Outline
▪ Subtask #4 - Write Blog Copy
▪ Subtask #5 - Review Blog Copy
▪ Subtask #6 - Apply Blog Proofing Revisions
▪ Subtask #7 - Design Blog Images
▪ Subtask #8 - ....

This structure will help pass work back and forth,

while also providing good visibility in to how far
along the deliverable or project actually is.

The biggest mistake teams make in ClickUp is

creating one Parent Task, assigning it to multiple
people, and hoping the team will just magically pass
work back and forth in the one task without anything
slipping through the cracks. News flash - this doesn't work!

https://www.zenpilot.com/blog/clickup-mistakes
For more ClickUp mistakes that you should avoid, read our article, “The Biggest Mistakes Made in
ClickUp (And How to Avoid Them)”.
https://www.zenpilot.com/blog/clickup-mistakes

15
Setting Up Your ClickUp Spaces, Folders, and Lists
Remember to take the time to categorize and understand how your work should be structured in
ClickUp before you actually jump in to ClickUp.

Technical Blueprint Prepared by:

Hierarchy Views Custom Fields Summary

Growth
Field A Field C
View #1 View #5
Chaos to Clarity Guarenteed
Folder A Option 1 Option 5 Option 1 Option 5
View #2 View #6
Option 2 Option 6 Option 2 Option 6
Folder B View #3 View #7 Option 3 Option 7 Option 3 Option 7
Option 4 Option 8 Option 4 Option 8
List A View #4 View #8

List B
Field B Field D
Option 1 Option 5 Option 1 Option 5
Delivery
Option 2 Option 6 Option 2 Option 6
View #1 View #5 Option 3 Option 7 Option 3 Option 7
Client Folder Option 4 Option 8 Option 4 Option 8
View #2 View #6
Service Line
View #3 View #7
Service Line

Service Line View #4 View #8

Service Line
Integrations

Operations Integration A
Purpose:

Folder A View #1 View #5

View #2 View #6
Integration B
Folder B Purpose:
View #3 View #7

Folder C
View #4 View #8

Folder D

We'd recommend drawing this out in a Miro Board or Lucid Chart first. This will help with planning and
visualizing it before you go crazy in ClickUp. And remember, if you’d like ClickUp’s highest-rated
https://www.zenpilot.com/call
solutions partner to build your ClickUp Blueprint for you, book a call with my team and we’ll build one
for you in less than 3 weeks.

“There is very little guessing work once you’ve set up the recommended
hierarchy that ZenPilot customizes for you during the Blueprint process. Less
energy is spent on trying to remember little details or wondering what tasks
should take priority. We’ve shifted from reactive to fairly proactive. I have
confidence in my team’s ability to get work done, and if I have any doubt, I have
full visibility. It allows for a lot of peace and open space to think deeply.”

Rebecca Nash
Director of Operations, Beam Content

16
After you have this figured out, start by building your first Space. The workflow is fairly
straightforward:

1. Hover over the “+” icon next to Spaces and select Create Space.
2. Enter your desired Space name and description (you can also use a Template, but that's still to
come).
3. Adjust the Space color and avatar.
4. Choose whether to make it private or public to your whole team. I'd recommend just keeping this
public for now. You can change it later if necessary.
5. Select your preferred Statuses. We recommend keeping it simple at first with “Open”, “In
Progress”, and “Closed”. You can create a Status Template if you'd like, but keep these simple!
6. Toggle on important ClickApps like Time Tracking or Time Estimates.
7. Add in any required Views. You can just stick with the options they give you for now. These can
always be edited and customized later on.
8. Click Review Space and Create to finish.

Repeat these steps to create multiple organizational Spaces in your Workspace.

Or, you can save this as a ClickUp Template and deploy it a few times to save you time. Feel free to
fast forward to the Templates section in this guide if you'd like to do that.

17
A Brief Thought on Statuses
Status complexity is another mistake I see teams make in ClickUp. Again, this is why standardization
and having a strategy before you jump in to ClickUp is important.

Most Teams Make Two Big Mistakes With ClickUp Statuses

❌ Statuses become the source of truth for what step a project is on
Earlier, I recommended a Parent Task and Subtask structure that will pass work back and forth.
Additionally, that structure will show and tell everyone that we just completed the first draft of our
blog post or we sent the blog to our client.

But in reality, most teams build one Parent Task, assign a few people to it, and use the Status to show
what stage or what step a project or deliverable is in. This will make work slip through the cracks,
you'll lose workload visibility, and nobody will know who is in charge of what.

We'd recommend that 99% of the time, a status is either To-Do or Complete. Again, keep it simple.
Your team will thank you for it. And you'll thank yourself for it.

Chaos Clarity

❌ Statuses are different for every department, team, and work category
Secondly, inconsistent or different Statuses will become a nightmare when you create Dashboards or
Views.

It's hard to fully explain this right now, but feel free to experiment by creating different Statuses at
every Space or Folder. Now, navigate to the Everything or Workspace level, create a View, and try to
Filter or Group by Status. It's not easy... Don't do it. Keep it simple. You'll thank me later.

18
Step 7: Building Your ClickUp Templates
As much as I want to skip ahead to discussing Views and Custom Fields, I think it's important that you
understand how the ClickUp Template Center works.

ClickUp Templates are where you really start to unlock productivity and efficiency gains inside of the
system. Templates help you standardize your work, connect your SOPs to tasks, and provide clarity for
everyone.

You could go and start adding tasks to your workspace all willy nilly, but leveraging ClickUp Templates
is the way to go, trust me.

Not saying you can't ever add an ad hoc task to your ClickUp Workspace, but if you can leverage
ClickUp Templates for 85-90% of your task creation, you'll get way more out of ClickUp and build a
much more productive and profitable business.

19
Where Can You Find the ClickUp Template Center?
Thankfully, finding the ClickUp Template Center is relatively easy. You can find the Template Center
multiple ways:

1. Navigate to your Sidebar Menu on the left. Hover over any Space, Folder, or List, and click on the
ellipsis that shows. Click on Templates and then click Browse Templates.
2. You can also leverage Slash Commands. Type "/Template" anywhere you can type in ClickUp and
you'll be able to pull up the Template Center.
3. Lastly, you can find the Template Center in your Quick Action Menu in the top right of your screen.
Click on your Quick Action Menu (represented by 9 dots) and select the Template Center icon.

The ClickUp Template Center will be populated with ClickUp Templates. You can get started with
some of these if you'd like, but be aware that all of them come with different Statuses and Custom
Fields which could lead to complexities in your Workspace.

20
What Can You Save as a Template in ClickUp?
As I discussed earlier, the beauty of ClickUp is the Hierarchy. Well, the even more beautiful part is that
you can create a Template at just about any level of the Hierarchy.

You can create Space Templates, Folder Templates, List Templates, Task Templates, Checklist
Templates, View Templates, Doc Templates, and Whiteboard Templates!

How Do You Save a Template?

Saving Templates will follow a fairly similar process to finding the ClickUp Template Center.

Navigate to your Sidebar Menu on the left. Hover over any Space, Folder, or List, and click on the
ellipsis that shows. Click on the Templates icon and then click Save as Template.

You can also navigate to any Task, Doc, View, Checklist, or Whiteboard and follow the same process.

You'll also see an Update Existing Template icon. And yes, this does exactly what it sounds like. You
can save Templates, and update them.

But now, you're probably wondering, "how do I manage all of my Templates and update them?". And
given that there a lot of types of Templates that can be leveraged, how should we use them? And how
the heck do we manage them (from building, to updates, etc.)?

21
ClickUp Template Best Practices
If you want to make the most out of the ClickUp Template Center, and get a more thorough deep dive
into the best practices and template building process, I recommend you read our article (+ video
https://www.zenpilot.com/blog/how-to-10x-productivity-with-clickup-templates
tutorial), "How to 10x Productivity With ClickUp Templates". That article will explain to you
everything you need to know about ClickUp Templates. But anyways, while you're here, I'll give you a
few pieces of advice.

1. Build a "Process Library" Space

If you could take one thing away from this guide it would be this - your project management system is
almost useless without process templates. It seems harsh, but it's true. Documenting your processes
and saving them as templates is one of the most important steps every business will and needs to take.
Chaos will exist without processes.

So to do this best, I recommend you build one of the most powerful assets your company could ever
have - your "Process Library". Your "Process Library" will be a separate Space in your ClickUp
Workspace solely dedicated to building and storing your process templates.

Why Should You Create a ClickUp Process Library?

I'll be honest, the biggest limitation to the ClickUp Template Center is the inability to edit templates
directly in the Template Center. Once a Template is saved, you cannot edit it unless you have the
source file for that template built somewhere in ClickUp - hence the reason for the “Process Library”.
Having these Template source files on hand makes updating and maintaining Templates easy.

Your Templates should never be static. You'll be updating regularly. If you're brand new to ClickUp, or
just new to using Templates, this might not mean much right now, but when you have 20, 50, or 100+
Templates, you'll realize why I'm telling you to build this out now. Overall, invest time upfront to build
your dedicated “Process Library”.

22
How Should Your Process Library Be Structured?
Your "Process Library" should contain a logical Folder structure to organize your process Templates.
We suggest your Templates are organized by department, work category, and Template type (similar
to how your ClickUp Hierarchy is organized):

• Space: Process Library

▪ Folder: Delivery Task Templates

▪ Folder: Delivery List Templates

▪ Folder: Growth Task Templates

▪ Folder: Growth List Templates

▪ Folder: Operations Task Templates

▪ Folder: Operations List Templates

▪ Folder: New Client Folder Template

▪ Folder: View Templates

▪ Folder: Document Templates

Then within those high level Folders, create additional organization based on work categories or service
lines for your delivery focused Templates. It could be structured like this:

• Folder: Delivery Task Templates

▪ List: SEO

▪ List: ABM

▪ List: Email

▪ List: Account Management

Each one of these Lists would then host

all of the deliverables related to that work
category or service line. It could be
structured like this:

• List: Email

▪ Parent Task: Newsletter

▪ Parent Task: Drip Campaign

▪ Parent Task: Promotional Email

Each of these would contain the Subtasks needed to complete that deliverable.

23
2. Prioritize Your Processes First
Again, before you even jump in to ClickUp, I would spend some time prioritizing what processes you
actually need to build. You can't build everything at once, so you'll need to prioritize what get's built
first, and then build that in ClickUp.

If you're a marketing agency, you'll probably need a process for client onboarding, writing blog posts,
building website, sending emails, etc. Additionally, you'll need processes for employee onboarding,
recruiting, payroll, taxes, financial planning, etc.

ht ps:/ w w.zenpilot.com/proces -prioritzation-workshe t

We've walked over 3,000 teams through this process. And to do that, we leverage a Process
htPrioritization
tps://www.zenpilot.com/process-Worksheet
prioritization-worksheet which helps teams brain dump and prioritize all of the processes they need to
build out in ClickUp.

Overall, the process of prioritizing process building is relatively easy.

→

Gather your leadership team in a room (or virtual call for my virtual teams!), brain dump everything you
do as a business, and then priroitize those processes based on how often it’s performed, how little
documentation you currently have on that process, and how painful it currently is without a
documented process. You’ll then rank all of those processes and determine which one(s) are needed to
build now and who is in charge of building it!

24
3. Use Folder, List, and Task Templates for Your Processes
After you've prioritized your processes, you can now start to build these in ClickUp. You’ll be using
your new "Process Library" Space for this!

Folder, List, and Task Templates are the most common ClickUp Templates that you'll use. Yes, you can
use a Space Template if you want to (especially in the very beginning), but Folder, List, and Task
Templates will be leveraged the most.

Here's how they'll work:

• Task Templates will be used for deliverables - blog posts, meetings, financial reports, audits, etc.
• List Templates will be used for projects - website builds, implementations, etc.
• Folder Templates will be used mostly for client service teams because they can be leveraged to
templatize your client folder structures (as discussed in our Hierarchy conversation).

Follow the Parent Task and Subtask structure we discussed earlier.

Each Parent Task should represent a deliverable or project phases and all the Subtasks will represent
the steps needed to complete that deliverable or project phase.

25
Task Template Example

Task Templates will be the most used Template for 95% of teams. Task Templates will be like "tools in
your toolbox". You'll use these Templates over and over and over again.

Let's walk through building out a polished Task Template using a common example - blog posts.

Inside your ”Process Library” Space, within the "Delivery - Task Templates" Folder and "Inbound" List,
we'll create a Parent Task called "Blog Post" with Subtasks, Due Dates, Time Estimates, and Custom
Fields (which we’ll discuss in more detail later):

• Subtasks: As we discussed, these represent the actionable Tasks that are needed to complete a
blog post - create blog strategy, write blog, proof blog, send blog to client, receive feedback +
make adjustments, publish blog, etc.
• Due Dates: Due Dates in your Templates represent a date map. You should only care about the
distance between each of the dates - not the actual date itself. Pick a date for your first Task and
then work from there. You can remap these due dates when you deploy the Template.
• Time Estimates: Time Estimates are what they sound like. How long do you think each task should
take? We recommend that each of your Tasks is broken up in to Tasks that take no longer than 4
hours. This will help you get a much more accurate Workload View in ClickUp.
• Dependencies: Link your Tasks together in the Gantt View for easy date remapping in the future.
• Checklists: Add Checklists to your Subtasks to provide reminders for your team to ensure they
don't forget to do certain things related to a Task.
• Additional Custom Fields: Add in Custom Fields that you want included in your Templates (we will
discuss this later).

Overall, your Templates should be built with the mindset that each Task will be assigned to one
person. Additionally, for best results, each Task should be able to be completed by that one person in
one sitting and Due Dates should be “Do” dates (what day the Task should be started and completed
on).

When your Tasks are broken up in to smaller “bite-sized” pieces, you’ll provide more clarity for your
team, get a better view in to project progress, get better time tracking data, and make it much easier
to see workload.

26
List Template Example

List Templates will be the second most used Template for teams in Clickup. List Templates make it
much easier for project managers to set up and assign out larger projects like website redesigns, client
onboardings, implementations, etc.

In this example, let's build out a multi-phase website redesign List Template. Your List Templates will
act slightly different than your Task Templates. For starters, Parent Tasks will operate slightly different.
In a List Template, Parent Tasks represent milestones or phases within a project, instead of a single
deliverable.

You’d build this Template in your ”Process Library” Space, within the "Delivery - List Templates"
Folder.

Within a website redesign, your Parent Tasks may be “Research & Discovery”, “Wireframes &
Protyping”, “Content”, “Design”, “Deverlopment”, “Launch”, “Post Launch”. Within each of the Parent
Tasks will live more granular Subtasks like “Conducting Customer Interview”, “Writing Website Copy”,
“Presenting Design Concepts”, “Migrating Custom Functions”, etc. (just like your Task Templates).

Additionally, your List Template can include additional List Settings that an ordinary Task Template
does not bring with it. This will include things like Views, Automations, and Documents!

27
Folder Template Example

Folder Templates are the homes where your List and Task Templates (at least for client service
businesses) will actually be deployed in and live.

Folder Templates help streamline client onboarding, improve team ClickUp usage, and help you
centralize client data. If you’re both a ClickUp and HubSpot user, you’ll want to check out our article (+
https://www.zenpilot.com/blog/streamline-onboarding-with-the-clickup-hubspot-integration
video tutorial), “How to Streamline Client Onboarding With the ClickUp + HubSpot Integration”.

Overall, setting up Folder Templates will be less about the Tasks, and more about the structure of your
Folders. Here’s how you’ll set it up:

• Client Folder Template [Folder]: You'll begin with the client Folder. This Folder will have a few
Views and Documents.
▪ Onboarding [List]: You'll build your client onboarding process directly in to your Folder
Template. This will be a List with all of the Tasks needed to onboard a new client. When a client
is onboarded, this List can be archived.
▪ Contract XY List [List]: You'll build an empty List that will serve as a home for all of your Tasks.
This List will be renamed to reflect the name of your contract with the client. All work for this
contract will live in this List for easy time tracking and updates. You'll also leverage similar
Views to those at the Folder level and build them in to this List.
▪ Account Management [List]: You can build an empty List that will serve as a home for all of your
account management related Tasks. These can be Tasks associated with the client, but not a
particular contract or project. Similar to the Contract List, you'll leverage similar Views to those
at the Folder level and build them in to this list.

28
4. Make the Process Live Where the Work Get's Done
After you’ve built a few Templates in ClickUp, it’s time to take these to the next level.

You can start by building your ClickUp Templates with the Task Names, Due Dates, Time Estimates,
and Dependencies, but you'll unlock even more productivity gains when you combine your processes
with those tasks.

If you've created SOPs or have any documentation on how your business does things, use the Task
Description feature to link out to that SOP document, video tutorial, or template. Or, you can use the
Task Description to write out instructions for how to complete that specific Task.

When your processes are combined with the Tasks, your teams compliance rate for actually following
that process will go through the roof.

I’d even recommend you build an Internal Wiki or Knowledgebase directly in ClickUp. This can store all
of your SOPs and process documentation - keeping everything in one system. For a detail tutorial on
https://www.tozenpiCreate
how to build this in ClickUp, check out our article and video, “How lot.com/blog/how-to-create-an-i
an Internal nternal-Wiki
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29
5. Leverage View Templates for Standardization
Views can be included within your List, Folder, and Space Templates, but they can also be saved on
their own.

And though we haven't yet discussed Views (that's coming soon), you'll want to leverage View
Templates to help you standardize Views in your Workspace to make it easier for your team to
navigate and understand ClickUp. Views are powerful, but can be difficult to comprehend. Leveraging
View Templates to standardize is extremely helpful to make your Workspace a tad bit simpler.

6. Leverage Doc Templates for Meeting Agendas

Last but not least are Doc Templates. Doc Templates can also be saved with Space, Folder, or List
Templates, but they can also be saved on their own in ClickUp.

We use them primarily for meeting agendas. ClickUp can be used to run your meetings, save all of your
notes, and create Tasks directly from your notes (which is amazing - just highlight text in a Doc and
click “+ Task”)

For example, If you're a business that runs on EOS (the Entrepreneurial Operating System®), you can
run your Level 10 Meetings™ directly in ClickUp - and you'll leverage a ClickUp Doc Template to
deploy the agenda every week!

30
The Power of ClickUp Templates
ClickUp Templates can bring as much or as little detail as you want. As you saw in my
recommendations, you can bring Task Descriptions, Checklists, Time Estimates, Due Dates, Custom
Fields, Dependencies, Views, and more with Templates.

Obviously your Templates don't need to be perfect to start, but as you add in more and more detail,
you'll be creating extremely powerful assets to help you plan out projects without having to build them
from scratch.

If you have all of the details, especially those Task Descriptions built out, you'll be able to include the
"How To" instructions to every task that's deployed - making it 10x easier to bring on a new employee
and scale your business.

“Our team is more efficient, productive, and healthier. I was always wary of how
much of our work could be put into processes, but this has completely changed
my mind. If you want to take your business to the next level, ZenPilot is a must!”

Kyle Harms
CEO, Hot Sauce

There's a ton of power in ClickUp Templates. Create them. Save them. Deploy them into your live work
environment. And reap the benefits.

"The framework for setting up our processes and executing them was
phenomenal. This was the missing piece. Yes, ClickUp provided the technology,
but we had never sat down and written out our processes step-by-step. The
process that ZenPilot provided for process building was a game changer for us."

Matt Guevara
Founder, Venn Digital Marketing

31
Step 8: Leveraging Custom Fields
Custom Fields can be dangerous in ClickUp. Depending on your personality type, you may go and
create hundreds of different Custom Fields because you'll think you'll need them. But the reality is, you
probably don't.

Creating hundreds of different Custom Fields in your ClickUp Workspace (without understanding how
they work and where they live) can lead to some nightmares down the road. This Custom Field
craziness will make it much harder to create Dashboards and Views. Plus, your team may get confused
to which Custom Fields they should and shouldn’t be using.

Yes, Custom Fields are powerful, but you need to build them with a purpose. This is another reason for
having a strategy before going in to your ClickUp implementation.

You’ll want to have your Custom Fields listed out with how they’ll be used before you jump in to
ClickUp. This doesn’t mean you can’t create additional Fields later on, but get the basics created first.
In a few pages, I’ll be sharing a few Custom Fields we recommend you create right away.

32
What Are ClickUp Custom Fields?
Simply put, Custom Fields in ClickUp are ways of adding different types of data or unique identifiers on
to your ClickUp Tasks to customize and personlize your Workspace.

1. They allow you to segment data for Views and Dashboards

2. They allow you to add more information to your Tasks
3. And they provide you with Automation capabilities (mainly because they can act as triggers!)

Where Are Custom Fields Located?

This is important. Custom Fields can live at any level of your ClickUp Hierarchy.

To add a Custom Field, you can either navigate to your Custom Field Manager, which you'll find in your
Quick Actions Menu in the top right corner of your screen. Or you can go to any View in your
Workspace and click on the “+/Add a Column” button that'll you'll see on the right side of your View.

Be careful. If you click “+/Add a Column” at your Everything/Workspace level, you will be adding a
Custom Field to your entire Workspace - meaning that every Task in your ClickUp Workspace will now
have that Custom Field applied to it.

You don't typically want this. It may not mean as much to you right now, but as you build more
advanced solutions in ClickUp (like a CRM), you don't want Custom Fields you're using for your Growth
team to live on those records living in your CRM.

Keep your Custom Fields located no higher than your Spaces. If you want to add a Custom Field to a
Space, just navigate to that Space, pull up a View, press the “+/Add a Column” button and add a new
Field here. This will allow you to use the Custom Field on every task in that Space.

33
 Why Do Custom Fields Matter?
Custom Fields are what will unlock future custom Views and Dashboards in the future.

For example, we use a "Role" Dropdown Custom Field. This is built in to our Templates in the "Process
Library" Space. This field will be populated with different roles that our team has - copywriter, admin,
proofer, strategist, account manager, designer, engineer, etc.

Every Task in our ClickUp Templates will then get this Custom Field applied to it. When the Template
is deployed, we can group all of the Tasks that have the "Copywriter" role applied to it, and assign
those Tasks in bulk (using the Bulk Action Toolbar).

This process saves us a few minutes on the Task deployment process. And as you scale, this can save
days, if not weeks, of admin time per year!

https://youtu.
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34
Secondly, we also leverage an "Account Manager" Dropdown Custom Field.

This Field can be applied to every task that falls within that account manager's book of business. An
account manager may have 10 different clients. Within each of these clients, they have 4-5 different
deliverables being worked on, and each client has a team of 5 people.

If an account manager wants to see all of the work across those 10 different clients in one place, you
can create a View that shows all Tasks that have that Custom Field applied to it. Instead of that
account manager having to navigate through a bunch of folders and lists in ClickUp, they'll have one
View where all of this is showing.

This is why your Clickup Hierarchy is so important. The way you design your Hierarchy in ClickUp will
either enable or limit your ability to create Views or Dashboards just like this.

And aside from the Hierarchy, this is why I’d limit your Custom Field usage. When you have too many
Custom Fields in your Workspace it becomes difficult to manage and keep organized for Views. Keep it
simple so that you and your team don’t get overwhelmed.

35
Custom Field Recommendations
I'd recommend you have at least three different Custom Fields to start, and then don't create any more
until you're ready:

1. Role (or Delivery Role): This is a Dropdown Custom Field that is used to assign work and make
hiring decisions. Populate this Field with roles your business has. Every task should have a "Role"
Custom Field applied to it.
2. Work Category: This is another Dropdown Custom Field that is used to label work categories
across your business. This is great for future reporting to see which services are most profitable for
your business, or where you're spending the most time.
3. Task Type: This is another Dropdown Custom Field that helps you label your Task Types in ClickUp.
Not every Task is a traditional Task. You may have some records, non-actionable tasks, meeting
tasks, etc. that you'll want to have properly labeled. And yes, I do understand that ClickUp now has
a native Task Type option, but at the moment this has some API and Automation limitations.

These are the most basic Fields that can be recommended to basically any business using ClickUp. The
“Account Manager” Dropdown Custom Field I mentioned earlier is a great addition, but even that is a
bit advanced for your beginning ClickUp implementation.

Again, always go in with a strategy before using ClickUp. You'll want to know your Hierarchy, but
you'll also want to have an idea for Custom Fields that you can apply to your Tasks to unlock visibility
and reporting capabilities in the future. For example, you can use Custom Fields I recommended to
create dashboards like this (screenshot below) that can track profitability and utilization.

And if you're unsure about what Custom Fields you should create and leverage, or you want help
creating dashboards like the one pictured above, https://www.zenpilot.com/call
book a call with my team.

36
Step 9: Leveraging ClickUp Views
ClickUp Views could be discussed directly after the ClickUp Hierarchy. They are one of the most
important features within ClickUp. However, it's important that you understand the ClickUp Hierarchy,
Custom Fields, and Templates first (mainly because now you know that you can turn your Views in to
Templates).

Most teams will start by setting up a bunch of random Views in their Workspace. This is fine, but as
you build and build and build in ClickUp, an overabundance of Views with no distinct purpose can
overcrowd your Workspace and lead to confusion across your team (trust me, I’ve seen it 100 times).

And confusion isn't going to help get your team bought in to the platform. This is a big reason why
teams fail to successfully implement ClickUp.

We’d recommend only building the Views you need, and standardizing them across your Workspace.
This is exactly why you need to know about View Templates. Plus, you can build Views in to your
Space, Folder, and List Templates. This will save you hours (maybe months) of hard work and
headaches if you get your desired Views built in to your Templates. That way you don't have to go and
set up every View from scratch!

If you're looking for a more thorough guide on Views, I recommend you read our article (+ video
https://www.zenpilot.com/blog/clickup-views-overview
tutorial), "Everything You Need to Know About ClickUp Views". But since you're here and reading
this guide, let me give you a few pointers...

37
Tip #1 - Public vs. Private Views
This may not be a tip as much as it is a warning. When Views are created, they'll be set as public,
unless you choose to make them private (or if you have the Default Private Views ClickApp turned on
then just disregard that).

If a View is public, this means that everyone in your ClickUp Workspace will see this View, and can
make changes to this View. If a change is made to the View, everyone will see the changes. This isn’t a
huge deal unless you have a bunch of brand new ClickUppers who have no idea how Views work.

If you do have a bunch of brand new ClickUppers and want to restrict people from changing or editing
a View, you can click on that View, select More settings and toggle on Protect view. This will restrict
anyone from editing your beautiful Views you created and keep your Workspace in check.

If a View is private, this means that only you can see it. You'll know it's a private View when it has a
little “Lock icon” next to the View. You can edit, change, and adjust this View without anyone else
seeing the changes.

Private View

Public View

38
Tip #2 - Identify Roles Before Creating Views
When you’re creating Views, you need to go in with some sort of strategy (I know I’ve said this 1
million times). Think about the main roles within your business. This will vary by business type and size,
but for most businesses this will include 5 main roles:

1. Individual Contributors: Need to know what's on their agenda and what they need to prioritize.
2. Account Managers (or Team Leads): Need to see how their clients projects are progressing, how
the contract is pacing, what the results are, and what they need to discuss at their meetings.
3. Project Managers: Need to see team workload (with ClickUp's Workload View) and be able to
easily reassign and remap due dates if necessary, while also keeping ClickUp up-to-date.
4. Leadership: Need visibility into client health, team health, and overall agency health (profitability,
workload, utilization, etc.)
5. Clients: Need to know what's happening, what's completed, and what the results are.

ClickUp Users

Individual Account Project

Leadership Clients
Contributors Managers Managers

What is on my agenda How are current What does team How are our clients What has the team
today? projects progressing? capacity look like? doing? completed?

And what do I need to What are the results? Does work need to be How is the team doing? What are they
prioritize? reassigned? working on?
And what do I need to How is overall agency
discuss with my Does work need to be health (profitability, And what are the
clients? rescheduled? workload, utilization, results?
etc.)
Is the system
up-to-date?

When you identify these roles before creating Views, you'll be able to ask your team sitting in those
roles, "what do you need to see and why?". You can then build Views around those answers and
create specific Views for specific people.

Plus, when you start thinking about how you can create those Views, you'll begin to think about how it
relates to your ClickUp Hierarchy, and you'll start identifying Custom Fields that can be used to
segment certain Tasks to give your roles a View that shows them only what they need to see. The
strategy will help bring it all together so that everything you create has a purpose!

39
Tip #3 - Use "Default for everyone" On Important Views
So, yes, it's important to keep your Views standardized and strategic, but, as you add more and more
Views to your Workspace, it’ll get a bit daunting and confusing. Each location can have 20+ Views!

Additionally, if a user goes to a certain location, there’s no guarantee that they will see the View they
were expecting to see. Someone on your team may navigate to one of your Spaces expecting to see
something, but they may see something completely different! They may think they’re in the wrong
spot or some Tasks have dissapeared, but in reality its just because they are looking at a different
View.

This can be troublesome for new users who aren’t super familiar with the way ClickUp Views work.
There are thousands of different combinations of View Types, Filters, Groupings, Columns, Settings,
etc. that you can use to view information differently in ClickUp.

To help minimize some of this stress and ensure new users understands don’t tink they’re going crazy,
you can use the Default for everyone feature in ClickUp. If there is one particular View that you want
everyone to see when they click on to a Space, Folder, or List, the Default for everyone setting will
force everyone to see a particular View when they navigate to that location.

To set this up, navigate to your View Options, select More Settings, and toggle on Default for everyone.

You also have the option to Pin Views which won’t force everyone to look at that View, but it will push
it to the front on your View Menu.

40
Tip #4 - Four ClickUp Views You Absolutely Need
Now that we’ve gone through a few different tips on setting up Views, I want to provide you with a
few Views that are non-negotiable. This list could obviously be a bit longer, but I'll narrow this down to
four of my favorite (and most used) Views in ClickUp.

1. "My Tasks" View

This is the most absolutely necessary View in all of ClickUp. This View should be built and customized
for every person in your Workspace.

The "My Tasks" View is designed to create a single view of someones tasks. Everyone should start and
end their day in this View. They shouldn't look anywhere else for their work. Everything will be
funneled in to their “My Tasks” View. This View can be customized to everyones liking and be turned in
to a Private View so only they can see it and access it.

Here's how to build the “My Tasks” View:

1. Navigate to the Everything level.

2. Create a new List View.
3. Group the Tasks by Due Date.
4. Subtasks should be shown as separate Tasks.
5. Filters should be set to only show Tasks assigned to you.
6. And you can add columns like Time Estimate, Time Tracked, Comments, Priority, and Due Date!

41
2. "Assignee" View
This View relies heavily on the "Role" or "Delivery Role" (shown below) Dropdown Custom Field we
discussed earlier.

If you leverage ClickUp Templates and add a "Role" Dropdown Custom Field to every Task, you'll be
able to easily assign those Tasks with this View.

Here's how to build the “Assignee” View:

1. Navigate to either a Folder or List (you can do either, but Folders will let you assign more work at
one time!
2. Add a new List View.
3. Group the tasks by your "Role" Custom Field.
4. Subtasks should be shown as separate Tasks.
5. You can use the ClickUp Bulk Action Toolbar to select all Tasks for a specific "Role" and assign
them to your team with a few clicks.

This View is perfect when you're beginning a project and need to assign a bunch of Tasks all at once!

42
3. "Date Remap" View
This View is actually a Gantt View. So for those who are Gantt lovers, this one is for you!

When you have a larger workflow built in ClickUp, you can leverage the Gantt View to remap a whole
project or deliverable all at once. You'll leverage ClickUp Dependencies to make this happen.

Again, this is why Templates are super important. If you build you processes and save them as
Templates in ClickUp, you can build Dependencies in to your Tasks, making it 10x easier to leverage
this View.

Here's how to the “Date Remap” View:

1. Navigate to either a Folder or List.

2. Add a new Gantt View.
3. Click on the Customize button (located in the far right).
4. Select Gantt options.
5. Toggle on Hide and skip weekends and Reschedule dependencies.

Now, when you have the Task structure I mentioned earlier in our Hierarchy and Templates
conversations, you can leverage the Dependencies to grab one Task, drag it in this Gantt View to
change the Due Date, and your whole workflow with move with it!

43
4. Workload View
The worst thing you can do as a business owner, leader, or manager is burn your team out. Burn out
comes from both over OR underworking employees. To help with this, you need to create a Workload
View at the Everything level in your ClickUp Workspace.

Creating a Workload View is relatively easy, but making it accurate isn’t as easy. As mentioned, you’ll
want to build this at the Everything level to capture all work in your ClickUp Workspace. You’ll also
want to make sure Subtasks and Weekends are shown. To do this, just navigate to Customize and
Workload Options and you can toggle them on (shown below).

To make your Workload View more accurate you’ll want to follow a few basic principles:

1. Every Task must have a Due Date, Time Estimate, and Assignee. Your Workload View is built on
these three ingredients.
2. Break down larger Tasks in to smaller “bite-sized” pieces.
3. Due Dates should be the “Do” date.
4. Assign only one person to a Task.
5. Always remap Overdue Tasks.
6. Build your processes and save them as ClickUp Templates.
7. “If it’s not in ClickUp, it didn’t happen”. Get every Task in ClickUp!

For more information and a thorough break down of these principles, read our guide (+ video tutorial),

https://www.zenpilot.com/blog/workload-capacity-visibility-in-clickup
“6 Steps to Accurate Workload & Capacity Visibility in ClickUp”.

44
Tip #5 - "Favorite" Your Favorite Views
Lastly, you will most likely have a few Views that you use on a regular basis. For me, that's obviously
my "My Tasks" View. This is where I start and end my day.

In ClickUp, you can Favorite Views. This allows you to pin them to the top of your screen like a
bookmark so that you can easily find them no matter where you are in your ClickUp Workspace.

Here's how to Favorite Views:

1. Navigate to the View you’d like to favorite and click on it.

2. Click on the Add to favorites button.
3. Find your Favorites in the Sidebar Menu above your Spaces.
4. Hover over the Favorites section and click on the Pin to favorites button.

You'll now be able to easily navigate from View to View with only a few clicks! Plus, if you’re a avid
ClickUp Dashboard user, you can also Favorite Dashboards and they’ll show up right next to your
Favorite Views!

45
Step 10: Training Your Team & Launching
This is key part of the ClickUp implementation process that most teams miss.

After you've carefully designed out your ClickUp Workspace with the proper Hierarchy, Views, and
Custom Fields, and you've built all of your processes and saved them as ClickUp Templates, you're
ready to invite your full team to ClickUp!

If you've already invited your team, that's fine, but I'd highly recommend you wait to get everything
set up correctly first. You don't want your team jumping in, getting confused, and losing momentum
right off the bat.

But beyond the right framework and setup, setting your business up for success while using ClickUp
boils down to also having clear rules of engagement, educating everyone on why and how to follow
those rules, and then disciplined accountability in your execution.

When you train your team, your training should revolve around 2 types of education:

1. Your expectations and ground rules around project management as a whole.

2. Orientation to ClickUp itself, your tool, and how to use it.

For example, we put everyone that works with us through a Project Management in ClickUp
Certification program.

Project Management in ClickUp

46
 “ZenPilot came in with a framework, implementation, and training resources to
move our agency through a lot of change in the way our 30 member team does
things....change management that is super hard like task and time tracking!

They really know ClickUp, and we do some crazy complicated things in there. If
you need help scaling and measuring operational performance in your agency,
ZenPilot is a great partner to get it done.”

Ben Labay
CEO, Speero

The first thing anyone learns in our training is the 10 Commandments. These basic expectations are
detailed and applied to real-world situations.

Commandment #1 is –> If it’s not in ClickUp, it didn’t happen.

There’s little value in doing things halfway. If you want the ability to accurately forecast workload,
follow a trail to figure out where things went off track for a project, or reward team members who
deliver the best work, you need that work to be centralized in ClickUp.

Explain that expectation and show your team what that looks like. If you’re not working with us, build
your own list of expectations and turn it into a training product for new hires.

Add in detailed walkthroughs of how you want the tool to be used and the daily habits each team
member needs to adopt.

Then keep that training up to date.

You will have better data to improve your decision making and your team will be more productive,
aligned, and grateful.

47
Step 11: Working in ClickUp
After your team is invited and working in ClickUp, what are the best ways for everyone to collaborate,
communicate, and complete their work? For starters, everyone should have their Notifications and My
Settings all set up correctly. After that, they should have their "My Tasks" View set up and ready to go.

But beyond the basics, let’s walk through a few principles to follow when working as a team in
ClickUp.

Creating Work
Creating work is fairly straightforward in ClickUp. Well, to be honest, it's only straightforward if you've
built your Hierarchy correctly and are leveraging Templates. A proper Hierarchy provides a clear home
for every Task. Additionally, Templates will help you set up Tasks, assign them out, and bring
necessary information as well (Dependencies, Custom Fields, Time Estimates,...).

I'd recommend you have certain people on your team that are in charge of deploying and assigning
https://www.zenpilot.com/blog/workload-driven-project-management-for-agencies
work. At ZenPilot, we leverage our “Workload-Driven Project Management Methodology” which
clearly defines roles across our team for creating, deploying, assigning, and remapping work in
ClickUp. Most often, account managers are the ones deploying work and project managers are
assigning work, but that may vary team to team.

48
And yes, obviously not every Task will be created from a Template. You can create adhoc Tasks in your
Workspace, just make sure they are put in to the right location and they have the proper information on
them.

And as a reminder, if you want accurate workload visibility in ClickUp, every Task needs to have a Time
Estimate, Due Date, and Assignee.

Completing Work and Communicating

After work is deployed and everyone has work assigned to them, they can start working on their Tasks.
Again, everyone should live out of their "My Tasks" View. This is where they will find their work,
complete their work, track their time, and communicate.

Your Parent Tasks Should Be Communication Hubs

The Parent Task and Subtask structure I recommended earlier will serve you well here. Each person will
be assigned to Subtasks. The Parent Task will NOT be assigned (unless it’s a Parent Task with no
Subtasks underneath it).

The Parent Task will serve as your communication hub for that specific deliverable. All communication
needs to live in that Parent Task. Additionally, all drafts for that deliverable - document, image, video,
or whatever it is - needs to live in the Parent Task. This is your source of truth for that deliverable. If you
follow this framework, your team will have a much easier time getting all the context they need when
completing their work.

49
Your Team Should Aim For “ClickUp Inbox Zero”
The other pro to centralizing communication in ClickUp is that your ClickUp Inbox will be clean and
have everything that everyone needs to get their work done! Everyone on your team needs to live in
their ClickUp Inbox and "My Tasks" View. This will provide them with their work, and any additional
context they need to get their work done correctly. And if you “make the process live where the work
gets done” and your SOPs are connected and living in your Task Descriptions, you’ll also provide your
team with needed Task instructions and directions.

All of this is a recipe for huge productivity gains!

"Thanks to ZenPilot’s methodology, we’ve increased our overall productivity by

400% and revenue acquisition by 25%. The team strictly adheres to timelines and
the budget, but internal stakeholders are particularly impressed with their
knowledge and workforce methodology."

Shayla Pearson
Director of Rev Ops, Seaworthy Strategy

Adjusting Due Dates in ClickUp

Sadly, work doesn't always get done on time. Things may fall behind because priorities have shifted,
someone went on PTO, or the team just fell behind. If work does fall behind, you'll want to have your
project managers use your "Date Remap" Gantt View to remap Due Dates. This will keep all of the
dates in your workflow together.

If you just adjust a Due Date in your "My Tasks" View, this won't adjust any of the other Tasks (unless
you have the Reschedule Dependencies ClickApp turned on, which can be a nightmare so be careful
with this). The Gantt View allows you to leverage your Dependencies for remapping work, while also
skipping weekends!

Additionally, you want to make sure that your team is always leaving a paper trail. If they do fall behind
and have to move a Due Date, they should leave a comment on that Task, @ mentioning stakeholders
to let them know and provide a reason. Communicating like this will help your team build healthy
habits and keep everyone aware, aligned, and accountable.

Healthy project management is all about the tools, processes, AND habits. These healthy habits are
extremely important! Don’t skip over them.

50
 “We're significantly less distracted (especially in Slack). We are commenting where
the work is being done and everything lives in ClickUp. The team was amazed at
the paper trail and context they had on their tasks. It's a game changer!”

Matthew McIver
CEO/Founder, Commence Studio

Running Meetings in ClickUp

Additionally, you can and should run all of your meetings in ClickUp. You can run both client meetings
and internal meetings inside of ClickUp.

Leverage ClickUp Docs to help you build agendas, store notes, and assign work out to your team. This
will help store all of your information in one system and help you keep a nice running log of everything
you've talked about in your meetings.

For more best practices and insights on how to best communicate, collaborate, and work inside of
https://www.
ClickUp, check out our article (+ video tutorial), “How tozenpilot. com/blog/clickup-communication-best-practices
Communicate Inside of ClickUp”.

51
Step 12: Optimizing, Optimizing, Optimizing
Once you’ve launched and your team has started working in ClickUp, there are a handful of specific
things you should do to help your team get up to speed quickly and then hold everyone accountable
to the standards you’ve set.

Specifically, within the first 2 weeks, you should set up a 1-on-1 meeting with each team member to
assess their usage and spot any issues as early as possible.

Look at obvious things like their time tracked and time estimated totals, overdue tasks, completed
tasks, and profile set up.

We recommend you follow this Four Step Accountability Process:

1. Analyze Performance: Monitor, record, and analyze Workspace, Task, and team member
performance.

2. Prioritize Issues: Prioritize which issues have the greatest impact on workflow.

3. Optimize Your System: Design and implement new solutions to solve workflow issues.

4. Team Activation: Train the team on new solutions to help them be more efficient.

Analyze Performance Prioritize Issues

Monitor, record and analyze Prioritize which issues
Workspace, Task and team have the greatest and
member analysis. impact on workflow.

Team Activation Optimize Your System

Train the team on new Design and implement new
solutions to help them be solutions to solve workflow
more efficient. issues.

52
Assign a ClickUp Champion
Additionally, to help optimize your ClickUp Workspace, we recommend you assign someone internally
to act as your ClickUp Champion. This person will execute the consistent checks, address minor issues,
escalate major issues as needed, and surface insights and aggregated data to the management team.
To build healthy habits across your team, you should be following clear cadences for accountability,
analysis, and improvement.

What Does Your ClickUp Champion Do?

The ClickUp Champion is responsible for the following tasks:

1. The Daily Spot Check: a 10-30 minute (depending on firm size) audit at the end of each work day
2. The Weekly Roundup: a slightly deeper dive on a weekly basis that leads to a short aggregated
report to management
3. The Monthly Review: a monthly review that pulls data for management that should impact resource
allocation, project scoping, pricing, etc.
4. The Quarterly Analysis: a comprehensive analysis that impacts time estimates, project planning,
recruiting and hiring, client relationships, etc.

Ensure that you prioritize these tasks. Develop a comprehensive and well-documented process and
assign it to a team member who will follow the process. This will enable them to provide valuable
insights and maintain accountability, maximizing your investment in process development and ClickUp.

You can create ClickUp Dashboards to help your ClickUp Champion perform their duties. I'd
recommend you build out a Time Reporting and ClickUp Leaderboard Dashboard to track this.
For more ClickUp Dashboard ideas and setup instructions, check out our article (+ video tutorial),
https:/ClickUp
“6 /www.zenpilot.com/blDashboard
og/clickup-dashboardExamples”.
s-examples-for-agencies

53
Create Advanced Views, Dashboards, and Automations
As you continue to grow in ClickUp and your team gains momentum, you can start to look in to more
advanced features (like Automations) in the platform or build out some pretty rad solutions. Part 2 of
this guide, will walk you through all of the advanced solutions you can build out inside of ClickUp, but
for now I’ll leave you with a few additional articles and videos so that you can choose where you want
to go next!

Here's a few advanced solutions I’d recommend:

1. htInternal
tps:/ www.zenpilot.com/blog/how-to-creaWiki:
te-an-internal-wiki-in-clickupCreate an internal wiki or knowledgebase in ClickUp to keep your processes and
tasks in one system.
ht ps:/ w w.zenpilot.com/blog/how-to-run-eos-in-cli kup Run EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System®) in ClickUp.
2. EOS®:
https:/ www.zenpilot.com/blog/streamlinIntegration:
3. HubSpot e-onboarding-with-the-clickup-hubspot-integration Leverage the HubSpot to ClickUp integration to streamline onboarding.
4. hCRM:
t ps:/ w w.zenpilot.com/blog/clickup-crm Build a CRM directly in ClickUp.
5. htClient
tps:/ www.zenpilot.com/Portals:
blog/clickup-client-portal Build client portals for your clients in ClickUp or communicate with clients directly in
ClickUp.

t ps:/ youtu.be/YTjlFN_BLOw?si=gQ15ewVAtc4_x6AlsEi8Ajy1IqGLBEJ Start leveraging ClickUp forms.

6. hForms:
https:/ www.zenpilot.com/Tracker:
7. Client blog/how-to-build-a-client-tracker Build a client tracker to start tracking client health, NPS scores, and contract data
directly in ClickUp.
8. Project
https://www.zenpilManagement Ratiocs-agenci
ot.com/blog/three-project-management-metri Reporting:
es-need-to-measure Start tracking compliance, completed, and velocity ratios in
ClickUp to improve project planning and execution.
9. Agile
ht ps:/ clickup.com/blog/agile-for-agin
encies-how-gabClickUp:
riel-uses-clickup-to-implement-scrum-for-digital-agencies/ Implement an Agile framework for your team in ClickUp.

Start simple, gain momentum, and then explore what else is out there. Or just hire a Verified ClickUp
Consultant like ZenPilot, to help you make the most out of your ClickUp investment 😄.

“After ZenPilot and ClickUp helped us gain full visibility into our production
resources, we've been able to increase utilization by 29% which has been a huge
win for our team.”

Nate End
COO, Trinity Insight

54
Looking for an ‘Easy Button’?
At this point, you’ve hopefully successfully self-implemented ClickUp and are experiencing a much
healthier, productive and profitable team. If you did and are, let us know! We’d love to hear about
your success story.

However, If you need some guidance on taking the chaos out of project management and getting
ClickUp implemented for your team, please reach out.

→ We've helped business owners increase productivity by 400%, completely remove

themselves from operations, and sell their business.

→ We've helped businesses grow profits by $1.2 million in year 1, triple headcount
seamlessly, and improve client retention.

→ We've helped lead complete culture resets, increased employee satisfaction, and
slashed team turnover.

https://www.zenpilot.com/call
SCHEDULE MY FREE STRATEGY OPS CALL →

“Taking your operations seriously will change your life. And we want
you to experience this life-changing impact. We’ve helped 3,000
different teams streamline their operations in ClickUp.

So, if you're ready to stop switching pm tools and finally experience

the power of world-class operations, book a free stategy call with us.”

Jeff Cypher
Head of Marketing, ZenPilot

55
ZenPilot helps you put an end to chaotic project management so that you
can stop switching tools, frustrating your team, and wasting thousands of
dollars in lost productivity every month.

We are the largest and highest-rated solutions partner for ClickUp, and
we've helped over 2,700 different teams deliver better client services
without all the chaos. For more information, visit www.zenpilot.com.