Hidden (Helpful) ClickUp Features | ClickUp Beginner Tricks & Tips

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VIDEO TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Introduction

1:39 How to use the ClickUp Favorites Bar

2:50 You can Favorite any ClickUp view.

3:27 Make the ClickUp Favorites Bar look like Asana

3:56 How to change the style of the ClickUp Sidebar

4:53 You can change the Sidebar Settings to alter spacing and your entire ClickUp Style.

6:59 The Support/Help area has some good stuff. Don’t miss it!

7:47 Keyboard commands in ClickUp allow you to do many tasks without using a mouse.

8:02 Hover over a task a click “M” to assign a task to yourself.

8:10 QuickSwitch (k) allows you to jump between locations.

9:00 Search (s) allows you to search your entire ClickUp universe by type of information.

9:47 Clip (beta) is ClickUp’s newly-released feature that provides screen recording like you’d get in tools like Loom or Dubb.

10:46 Group by isn’t a hidden feature, but newcomers often don’t appreciate how cool it can be to organize information. Yup, ClickUp is basically Trello on steroids.

13:12 Multitask Toolbar in ClickUp lets you alter, merge, edit, copy and link multiple tasks.

15:36 If you’re missing features, check your ClickApps are turned on.

16:04 Time Tracking is built into ClickUp (see this video for tutorial).

Video Transcript

[00:00:00.090]
Hey everybody Layla here with another video focused on ClickUp. This time it’s going to be a little bit more abstract rather than focusing on just one feature, this whole video is dedicated to the little things, the little icons, the little shortcuts, the little tiny pieces that will take you from being a savvy ClickUp beginner or maybe just total ClickUp beginner to being a more sophisticated, confident, intermediate level ClickUp user. We’re going to be talking about the shortcuts, the little hidden things, the tiny pieces that can help you make ClickUp a little bit more your own, that you probably wouldn’t notice if you’re just starting to use the tool.

[00:00:33.720]
So without further ado, let me first introduce the face down here. My name is Layla and I run ProcessDriven. In addition to my Facebook group, I run a business where I help others set up systems and software such as this. But my focus is around helping people design their workflows and processes to scale their business efficiently. So in my Facebook group, I talk live with my my peeps about this. So if you’re interested in having some more discussion about your ClickUp, talking about software more generally or ways that you can streamline your business, definitely join that Facebook group. That and a lot more information is in the description.

[00:01:07.020]
Now, back to this video. In the description, you will also find a table of contents. So if you’re looking for a specific feature explained, check the table of contents, kind of the quick hyperlinks and you’ll be able to jump around this video to the areas that are most interesting to you. While you are there, be sure to subscribe because I would appreciate it and good karma.

[00:01:24.780]
So let’s dive into today’s video. OK, so today we are talking about little things, I want to start with the littlest topmost thing that I think people don’t notice when they’re starting to use ClickUp, and that is this favorites bar. Now, I’m not sure by default whether it’s Pinned or not, but I have it pinned here, unpin it here just for sake. Over here in the sidebar, you will notice there is this favorite section and if you go ahead and you pin it.

[00:01:52.490]
It pins to the top, but what is the favorites bar? The favorites bar is basically a quick reference list of different views that you have saved. So, for example, maybe this schedule to me is very, very important. So I’m going to add it to favorites and I’m going to give it I don’t even know what this is clothing schedule.

[00:02:12.990]
And it adds to the favorites of my ClickUp account. It is this very topmost section. What’s nice about this is that view, which is maybe that’s very important to me that governs everything in my life. I can access it from any single space I’m at in my ClickUp, which is nice. So you’re always flipping around, but you can always, no matter where you are, if you’re in your inbox, you like to remember the clothing schedule, you can open it back up in one click without having to click around and get to where you need to go.

[00:02:38.220]
Pretty cool, right? These these favorites can have nicknames, as you’ll notice that I have. You can rename these to be anything without changing the name of the actual view. One point about this is, again, these are views that are favorite and you cannot favorite an entire list or folder or any of that good stuff. Actually, let me see, can a chat be favorited? I think it can, ooh way too excited about this, people.

[00:03:05.440]
Yes. So chat with clothing because it’s in the clothing folder so we can have any of you should be able to be favorited up here.

[00:03:16.320]
And you can have it able to be referenced from anywhere in your business, which is pretty darn cool. So we have that in there and that’s what the favorite bar is. To modify how you use it, you can use the pin to have it kind of you look more like Asana. So if you’re used to that, you’ll notice that you can have your favorites right at the top of your list and then everything else below it. I think that looks kind of hideous.

[00:03:37.620]
So I prefer to use the pin approach so it goes across the top. If you have a lot, maybe you want to have them in the sidebar here. You can also straight up hide them. So that way they’re not blocking your view. But I prefer the top bar with a pin. All right, so that is the very first feature favorites.

[00:03:54.140]
Let’s dive into another one. So the next one I’m going to go onto is the sidebar, let me move my head out of the way here. So I’m not distracting you. I’m going to collapse that and show you that there are multiple ways to view the sidebar. You’re probably familiar that this is the place where all your folders and lists live, but there are multiple ways to format it here. I have it kind of disappearing based on where my cursor is. I find that kind of annoying. But if that’s if you need that real estate on your screen, you can do that just like you can on your taskbar on a PC.

[00:04:23.180]
But if you prefer to have it expanded, this little green expansion button does the same thing as what the PIN button did previously. Not sure whether different icons, but, you know, that’s how it goes. So here we are. We can see that we have this expanded. So now, no matter where my cursor is, it stays expanded, which is what I prefer personally in my ClickUp. I can also resize it here, which is something you might have not played with yet.

[00:04:44.350]
If it was too small, it just gives up on you. So you can realize that if you wanna make sure that everything fits on one line.

[00:04:51.900]
And while we’re here we can click on sidebar settings, something that not many people start playing with. Sidebar settings allows you to basically close or expand all folders. Gives you that change there and you can show archived things, but most importantly, you can change the actual size and style of both the sidebar and everything in your ClickUp. Now, this is probably one you haven’t played with, and I can’t guarantee that this feature is going to be here forever. I think this is more of them testing different interfaces.

[00:05:21.010]
Yeah, here we go. Just your reminder, but at this point, you can change the style. And so right now we are in large and modern. I’m going to just change the compact. So it’s a little bit like the compact view personally makes it a little bit smaller and tighter, easier for these tutorials. But you can also change the actual layout. So you see here, if you look back at this wall and clicking between them, you’ll see the actual layout of my folders and lists change to look a little bit more like the different renditions of the interface and see how even just between those two.

[00:05:52.660]
So if you’re watching this in your ClickUp looks very different and you’re wondering, wait, what where she clicking? The icons that I’m seeing here don’t look the same as hers. It’s probably because you’re in a different style. I would expect that this feature is going to go away soon, standardizing it for everybody in the future. But until that point, just be aware of what version you’re in. Again to change those, they’re in here under the gear in the sidebar.

[00:06:14.620]
So that’s pretty much it for the sidebar. It’s the hub of everything. I’m sure you’re playing with it a lot just because you’re in it for your folders and lists, so I won’t dive too much more into it.

[00:06:23.170]
That’s collapse that’s going to drive me nuts, they’re going back and forth. We’ll just leave it open. So in these, I’m not going to review them at all. If you’re using ClickUp at all, you’re going to be familiar with those notifications, those folders, I’m sorry, the inbox and your dashboards. Similarly, these features down here, you’re either using them or you’re not.

[00:06:43.090]
I don’t consider them hidden because they’re right there in your face. Again, reporting in portfolios also. They’re right there. The help is actually an area where I do think is hidden. I think the help previously in ClickUp maybe wasn’t the most in your face, but here it is nonetheless directly here. And I think some of these resources are absolutely fantastic. So if you are looking to help improve the product, if you want to vote on different ideas for how the business or how the how the software could improve, definitely check out these areas, especially the request a feature area, very, very helpful and very I think, not talked about enough and how great they’re continually growing Resource Center is.

[00:07:23.590]
So that’s there. I’m going to count that as a hidden one. All right. Let’s go back let’s go back to the main area and go back to some of the mainstream stuff here. How about over here?

[00:07:33.430]
What is quick switch? So this is going to introduce two things at once. First, quick switch. Second, do you see that there’s those letters when I hover over quick switch, which is kind of clicked off my screen. Let’s go for something else.

[00:07:46.210]
Let’s go to this example. Just like quick switch. You see how there’s those letters in parentheses around like new task, for example, there it is, a T. So ClickUp has some built in hotkeys or keyboard commands in the software. One of the most easy to use ones, in my opinion, is to hover over an assignee and click on M, no shift, no nothing fancy, just hover over it and click M and it assigns it to self super helpful keyboard command.

[00:08:13.900]
But there are also a whole bunch of other ones, including quick switch, which when you click K it opens up this jump to location window where you could type something in.

[00:08:24.320]
Other pages, which is one of my things here, or you can just toggle up and down to go to some of the most common areas. For example, if we have any docs, we have some docs.

[00:08:35.450]
Not that many. So if you are tired of clicking around, if you’re someone that prefers to operate with keyboard commands, if you’re that person, you can now do that using K toggling up and down to go to some of the main areas in your ClickUp. Let’s go to other, what we see, here in other pages before. So there you go. You don’t love a mouse use the keyboard commands, starting with quick switch. The other one that has a keyboard command is the search icon.

[00:09:00.440]
Again, you can click S at any point and start searching through all of the information in your business to find the stuff that you need. What’s nice about this is you can filter between different types of information. Conversations means chat, by the way, how you sort by them and also customize your settings around where you’re searching, very fun. And again, that’s the keyboard command S and that’s the magnifying glass that one’s not hidden. But maybe you’re aren’t you aren’t using the keyboard and maybe you’re just clicking on it.

[00:09:26.540]
Class it up a little bit and just click S. Can be apparently, similarly the keyboard commands game gets upgraded when you go down here. New task reminders, notepads and docs, all of these things that you’re probably familiar with. If you haven’t started playing with them, please do. And again, use the keyboard commands to get there if you want to save a little bit of time.

[00:09:47.480]
One feature I will point out that is here, maybe it’s a little bit in your face, but people aren’t as familiar with is clip.

[00:09:53.570]
Now, there’s one here I’m going to start one in here any time you are writing in ClickUp, basically you can now record your screen, think, Loom, think exactly what I’m doing right now, but built into ClickUp, recorded audio, all that stuff. I’m actually not going to click on it right now just in case it stops my current recording. But this allows you to record audio and video or just one or the other and save it to ClickUp and also download it for other uses.

[00:10:19.310]
So definitely check that out if you haven’t if you’re subscribed to loom, but you don’t use it a ton, you’re on the paid plan, save a little bit money, consolidate and consider using clip. So that’s right here. It’s a newer feature. Just came out a few months ago right there. Click No, I guess it hasn’t earned the keyboard command yet. Neither has docs, but it’s there. Check it out.

[00:10:39.290]
All right.

[00:10:39.800]
I’ve talked about a bunch of stuff here. What else do we want to talk about? I mean, none of these are exciting, actually. Here’s an exciting one.

[00:10:48.920]
Everything in your ClickUp universe is governed by statuses unless you tell it otherwise. I’m actually going to highlight the group by feature, not because it’s hidden, but it kinda is. And I think it looks very cool, especially on the CanBan view. Let’s see if there’s anything, do we have any good custom fields on this example area. Yeah, all right, so what people don’t realize when they start getting into ClickUp start playing with it, they’re not used to the level of customization that comes with the tool.

[00:11:16.400]
So here we’re in a list view and we can see that there’s so many pieces of information that we can start using. And one of them is let’s just get, what do we got the design, how’s design looking pretty shabby. Let’s do brainstorming.

[00:11:30.450]
OK, so we’ve got these custom fields with drop downs that really look like monday.com. Yeah, they’re super awesome. Yeah, they’re on the free plan. Super cool. But did you know you can actually use those to organize information. The reason views are called views is because they allow you to view information in different ways, same information, different way view of looking at it. So part of how you make views truly be different views is by manipulating how they’re organized or how they’re formatted.

[00:11:57.230]
In this case, I’m going to group these by design. I’m going to save that for everyone. And now what I’ve done is I’ve sorted all my tasks not by the status, which is what they were originally sorted by, but by that stage I just set in here this custom field. Change that to final. And I can also change it this way, it just allows you to actually look at information in different ways. And I think that’s a pretty cool, this particular one, I feel like it’s very underutilized sort by. Yeah, that’s nice. But group by is really powerful, especially in CanBan view, if that’s the way you look.

[00:12:29.750]
Organizing by assignee. Let’s just do that other keyboard command, hover over click M. Oh it’s fine to me. If I were to then assort this by assignee, I said sort, I meant group.

[00:12:39.710]
I’m sorry for confusing you. But sort by a signee sort of again group by assignee. When I group it by assignee I’m actually creating columns based on who it’s assigned to, which is really fun. And if I were to go in here and change this, to be assigned to me again using the keyboard command. There we go. Pretty cool, and I think group by is a really good case, especially for someone that primarily works in CanBan. Use that group by. It’s really great. Just remember to say if you do want to save that view. And there we are.

[00:13:10.060]
So that’s another hidden feature. The last one I want to talk about today is really cool. I remember when I first started playing around, it wasn’t looking for anything, really was just using it for my own use. And I started, I stumbled upon this little bubble and I was like, what the heck’s that? Click on it.

[00:13:26.800]
And you unlock this new fancy world, this Multitask Toolbar or whatever you want to call it, is kind of the holy grail of advanced features in ClickUp. It allows you to do things to multiple tasks at the same time with just a few clicks. So you’ll see they, it shows up just to get to it is you hover over any task, you just look for the little, a little bar, the little ball actually, show you this in another view, same thing here, except it’s in a separate location.

[00:14:00.170]
So we’ve selected those two, we can tell that they’re highlighted by the fact that they’re partially surrounded in green and we’ve got this stuff showing up and every single one of these allows you to alter the tasks you’ve selected. You can change the watchers for all of them. You can change the assisgnees to all of them. In this case, we’re going to un-assign me. Look, now they’ve all changed to unassigned, they change it back, no. Okay, maybe this one doesn’t want to work.

[00:14:24.750]
There we go. All right, changed to un-assign. We can change the status of things and changes both to the red so we don’t have tags on. We can change the subject, like we can manipulate so much about these tasks by using this Multitask Toolbar you’ll notice some of these I have off and I’ll explain why in a moment. Change the dependencies. We can merge the tasks, we can link the tasks, kind of like you might be familiar with with Asana, you can change the custom fields.

[00:14:52.590]
So I know we had a custom field called design here, which we were using for a while. Let’s change both of them to working on it. Done. Use the example over here because it’s easier to see. Let’s change a custom field, change design again. Let’s change it both to nothing. This is a really handy way to really manipulate a bunch of data at the same time with this Multitask Toolbar and also archive and trash and copy to clipboard, copy to clipboard is very fun.

[00:15:19.170]
If you were looking to get this information into a word doc, into a PDF, into an Excel spreadsheet, or if for some reason you just want to have it handy for your own reference. Very, very cool. I would consider that hidden.

[00:15:31.290]
And yeah, let me first let me take a second here and explain why these certain ones are not working. ClickApps, ClickApps are functionality basically that ClickUp says it’s not essential. You have to turn it on if you want to get it just so they don’t overwhelming from the get go. Those are set at the space and folder level. Here we are ClickApps this space did not have those turned on. If I turn them on, now all of a sudden I can manipulate those extra pieces.

[00:15:57.960]
So there is that. All right. Just a few last things to wrap us up here. These are, I think, obvious. But, you know, I’m going to point them out just in case they’re not. Time tracking is built into ClickUp. If you’re not using it and you’re paying for another tool, I mean, stop install the chrome extension to make sure it works.

[00:16:16.180]
Watch my other video on how to make sure it’s all working well and use your estimates and time tracking in ClickUp or use the integrated time trackers. So in here you can actually see that ClickUp integrates with a bunch of other tools, including a ton of time tracking options that will track things sort of perfectly right into ClickUp just very, very nice. There’s so many more features I could highlight. I mean, automations, the list info and where that goes into, how that kind of shows up under each area.

[00:16:44.460]
I mean, there’s so many little things, but I think this is a pretty good taste test to take you from that intermediate or take you to beginner to intermediate. I think I’ll probably do a part two of this video if there’s interest. So leave me a comment if you found this helpful in about 15 to 20 minutes here, you’ve hopefully up leveled from kind of that, I’m still stumbling my way around to oh, those are a few cool things I can try tomorrow.

[00:17:06.870]
And if that is the case for you, definitely leave me a comment. Let me know and let me know if you’d like to see a part two to this video, because I’m sure I can pull out a few other tiny little features to get you excited and help you to start using ClickUp in a more helpful and practical way. So thank you so much for watching. That’s it for this video. Be sure to subscribe.

Tired of learning ClickUp the hard way? Maybe it’s time you and your team check out our How to ClickUp Mini Course to master the ClickUp basics in less than ONE day!