Working together

Who a person is#

Each person has a name and email address. An admin adds them in Settings → Organization → Users. Their seat shows invited until they sign in with that email address. Admins can correct the email before sign-in; afterward it is read-only. Agents use keys instead of email addresses (Agent users).

To change your name, open Settings → Your preferences, edit Your name and press Save. This updates your existing seats and pending invitations across organizations, including your fallback initials. Each affected organization records the change. Invitations created afterward use the name the inviter enters.

An organization admin can rename anyone, including agents, in Organization → Users. This changes only that organization's copy. Changing your own name again updates all your existing copies.

Your profile picture uses the first available source:

An uploaded picture. Click Picture under Settings → Your preferences → Profile, then Upload a picture… or Change picture…. Organization admins can also change pictures in the Users list. Remove picture restores the fallback below.
Gravatar. Qivo looks up the picture linked to your email using a hash, without sending the email itself. Gravatar pictures are public.
Your initials when no picture is available.

Uploaded pictures are visible to members and invited guests in that organization. Qivo uses temporary download links, which you should treat as private. Your browser may cache pictures for your signed-in account.

Profile pictures from Gravatar in Organization → General is on by default. Turning it off stops Gravatar lookups for that organization and leaves uploaded pictures intact.

Other people's changes appear automatically. Your edits appear immediately; if the server refuses an edit, Qivo restores the previous value and shows an error.

A task's Activity lists comments and changes from oldest to newest. Changes name the person or agent responsible and show old and new field values. Description changes include short excerpts. Departed members appear as Someone. Automated task changes identify via the REST API (key name) or via MCP. Comments carry the author or agent's name without a separate API label.

Appearance preferences. Themes and the Canvas background#

Choose Blue, Dark or Light under Settings → Your preferences → Appearance → UI theme. Blue is the default. Your choice saves automatically and follows your account across organizations and devices.

Canvas controls the workspace background independently of the theme:

Image of the week is the default. It changes each Monday at 00:00 UTC, or when you return to an inactive tab. If no weekly image is available, Qivo uses its configured default.
Custom image uses your uploaded image.
No image uses the theme's solid background without requesting an image.

The settings page shows a preview and any available title, location and creator information for the weekly image.

To upload a background, select Custom image → Choose your image. Use JPEG, PNG or static WebP with these limits:

At least 1600 × 800 pixels.
Aspect ratio from 1.3:1 to 3:1.
At most 32 megapixels and 8 MiB.

Replace your image changes it. Remove custom image returns to Image of the week. Selecting Image of the week or No image keeps your upload for later use. Personal backgrounds stay within your account and do not appear in Qivo Admin.

Images fill the workspace with a centered crop. Crop controls are unavailable. The workspace opens while images load and uses a solid background if no image is available. Your browser may cache your chosen background and preview for your account. The public demo does not keep this persistent cache.

Your inbox#

Your Inbox collects mentions in task descriptions and comments, plus updates to tasks you subscribe to. Updates include assignments, reviewer changes, status, priority, title, dates, remaining hours, pauses, moves, parent changes, archiving, restoring and comments. Your own actions do not notify you. Updates made through the REST API and MCP also generate messages. Only you can see your inbox.

Subscriptions. Click the eye button in a task window to open Subscribers, then use the eye beside Me to subscribe or unsubscribe. Anyone with access to the task can see its subscriber list, including viewers.

Organization admins and the named project lead can remove other subscribers with × or use + Add to subscribe an active user or agent who can access the task. People who later lose access remain listed and can be removed. Managing subscribers does not give access to anyone's inbox.

Qivo subscribes you when you are assigned or handed a task, mentioned on it, or comment on it. Creating a task alone does not subscribe you. Removing you as assignee does not unsubscribe you.

A hand-off happens when a task enters In Review with you as reviewer, you become the reviewer during review, or work returns to you as assignee when it leaves review or loses its reviewer. Hand-offs subscribe you again even after you unsubscribe. Reviewers receive Ready for your review. Setting a reviewer before review does not subscribe them yet. Tasks with subtasks stay with their assignee and do not hand over (Task ownership).

Reading messages. Each task has one inbox row showing its title, age, project and sub-project. New updates refresh that row and increase its unread counter. Opening the row or the task marks its messages read and leaves only the latest message in the inbox. The task's Activity keeps the history. Further updates start the unread counter again on the same row.

The Inbox badge counts tasks with unread updates and shows 99+ above 99. Read state follows you across devices. Sort by newest or oldest, or filter for unread, snoozed, mention, comment or change messages. Desktop search includes the messages grouped in each row and their project names.

On desktop, selecting a row opens the task's discussion pane. Click Description to expand its collapsed description. The pane shows the current assignee or reviewer, Activity and comment box. Use the pop-out button for editable details, attachments and links, or Open task in board to visit its Board. The project breadcrumb also links to the Board.

The address follows the selected task, such as /app/<org>/inbox/tasks/qn-14, so saved links and reloads reopen it. Esc closes a pop-out first, then the selected task, then the inbox. New updates on an open task are marked read as they arrive. A New divider marks unread comments and stays in place while you read. Unread changes without comments show a note instead.

On phones, use Unread / Mentions / All and Filter. Tap a row to open the full task, including Details. Back to inbox restores your list position. Each row's actions button provides read, snooze and removal controls. There is no inbox search field on phones; use global search to find tasks and projects. A desktop inbox search does not filter the phone list.

Desktop notifications. Choose Enable notifications in Inbox to receive a notification for each new event. Clicking one opens Qivo. The Windows/Linux desktop app uses operating-system notifications, with its own permission controls.

Managing messages. Right-click a row, or use its phone actions button, for Open task in board, Mark as read / unread and Remove notification. Read and removal actions apply to all messages in that row.

The Inbox toolbar and context menu also offer:

Mark all as read, including messages outside the current filters, search, displayed list and organization. Updates arriving after the action starts remain unread.
Remove all read notifications, with the same scope. It preserves unread updates, including those on a task with older read messages.

These actions leave tasks, comments and open drafts intact. The list's context menu offers them even when a filter shows no messages.

Snoozing. In a row's menu, set the number beside Hours or Days, then press that row's Snooze button. Hover the button to see the return time. Snoozing marks the task's messages unread, hides the row across your devices and removes it from the badge count.

At the chosen time, the row returns unread with a desktop notification if enabled. A new task update brings it back early. Show snoozed displays hidden rows with their return times. Opening one leaves it unread. Unsnooze brings it back immediately. Mark all as read, Remove all read notifications and automatic retention leave snoozed rows alone.

Retention. In Settings → Your preferences → Inbox → Remove read messages, choose 1, 7, 30 or 90 days, or Never. New users start at 7 days. The period starts when you read the latest message on a task. A nightly cleanup removes expired read rows without removing unread messages, tasks or comments.