What’s new

Courses can open on a date and ask you to finish another one first.

Release dates for sections, courses that come after other courses, and a clear finish line.

What it is. A course creator can hide a section until a chosen day (learners see Opens on that date) and can ask people to finish another course before joining. A course now counts as finished when every lesson is done. If the creator wants, handed-in assignments must also be marked and sent back first.

Why it matters. Teachers can pace a course week by week and build a path from one course to the next. Learners can always see what is left.

Who it’s for. Anyone teaching or taking a course on CoLabEx.

Open the Education Center

My calendar: every course date in one list.

See what is due and when new sections open, and get a note a day before.

What it is. A new My calendar page lists the due dates of work you have not handed in and the days new course sections open. The same dates can be added to your phone or computer calendar with your personal link. The day before work is due, you get a note in the app if you have not handed it in yet.

Why it matters. Fewer surprises and no digging through each course to find a deadline.

Who it’s for. Anyone taking a course on CoLabEx.

Open My calendar

Announcements for your course.

Post news once and everyone in the course is told.

What it is. Every course has an Announce tab. The creator writes a short post and everyone in the course gets a note in the app. Learners read the newest first and press Mark as read. The creator sees how many have read each post.

Why it matters. One clear place for news, and you can tell who has seen it.

Who it’s for. Anyone teaching or taking a course on CoLabEx.

Open the Education Center

A gradebook for your course, and My grades for learners.

See everyone's marks in one place, and learners can see their own.

What it is. Course creators get a Grades tab: every learner and every assignment on one screen, with optional groups such as Homework and Exams that are worth different amounts, and a button to download the grades as a spreadsheet file. Only marks you have sent back are counted. Learners get a My grades page with their marks and their total so far.

Why it matters. Creators no longer keep a separate spreadsheet up to date, and learners can see where they stand without asking.

Who it’s for. Anyone teaching or taking a course on CoLabEx.

Open the Education Center

Rubrics and a one-screen marking page.

Mark by tapping a level per row, with the work right beside it.

What it is. A course creator can add a rubric to an assignment: pick a ready-made one in a single step, or write your own rows and points. When marking, the learner's work is on one side and the rubric on the other. Tap a level in each row, add a comment if you like, and the total is added up for you. Press Return and the learner sees their marks.

Why it matters. Marking is faster and fairer, and learners can read how their work will be marked before they hand it in. Nothing is shown to a learner until you press Return.

Who it’s for. Anyone teaching a course on CoLabEx.

Open the Education Center

Assignments in a course.

Course creators can now set work to hand in, and send feedback back.

What it is. A course creator can add an assignment to a lesson: instructions, an optional due date, and whether learners write an answer, upload a file, or both. Learners press one big button to hand in, and can hand in again until the due date. The creator has a Work tab to read what came in, write feedback and send it back, and each side is told in the app.

Why it matters. Handing in work and getting a reply no longer needs email. Learners can see exactly what they sent and what the creator said, and creators can see who has not handed anything in yet.

Who it’s for. Anyone teaching or taking a course on CoLabEx.

Open the Education Center

Course files and a place to ask questions.

Every course now has a Files tab and a Discuss tab.

What it is. A course creator can share documents with the people taking the course, and learners can download them. Each course also has a discussion board with one big Ask a question button. You can follow a question and get a note in the app when someone answers. The creator can pin a question and mark the best answer.

Why it matters. Handouts and questions no longer need a separate email thread or chat. Everything for a course is in one place, and only people in the course can see it.

Who it’s for. Anyone teaching or taking a course on CoLabEx.

Open the Education Center

Tidy up: archive finished projects, and leave or hand over a team.

Archive hides things and keeps everything. Nothing is deleted.

What it is. Owners and project managers can archive a finished project, company or team, and bring it back any time. Anyone can leave a company or team, and an owner can hand it to another member first. Owners also get a Waiting to join list for invites, with Send again, Copy link and Cancel.

Why it matters. Finished work stops cluttering your lists, a group is never left without an owner, and a stuck invite is easy to fix.

Who it’s for. Project managers, company owners and team leads.

Open your companies

Line up for a public task someone else has claimed.

Up to 3 people can wait; the task is offered to you if the claimer drops out.

What it is. On a public task that is already claimed, you can join a waitlist of up to 3. If the person working on it misses the deadline or it fails, the task is offered to the next in line. You have 48 hours to accept, or you can turn it down.

Why it matters. Good tasks no longer fall back to the open list when one person drops out, and project managers keep work moving.

Who it’s for. Anyone looking for work, and project managers.

Browse tasks

Messages from strangers now arrive as requests.

Accept or decline; declining is private.

What it is. If someone you share no company, class or project with sends you a first message, it waits as a request. You choose to accept it. Declining tells them nothing.

Why it matters. You decide who can start a conversation with you.

Who it’s for. Everyone.

Open messages

Safer sign-in, uploads and forms.

A security round plus software updates.

What it is. Sign-in and reset links are harder to abuse, uploads of SVG images are blocked, and the software under the site was updated.

Why it matters. Your account and files are better protected.

Who it’s for. Everyone.

Claiming a task as a team is safer.

Every team member is enrolled, and a hold or invite is never overwritten.

What it is. When a team claims a task, every member now joins it. Reserving a task that is already held or has an invite now answers with a plain message instead of replacing it. Releasing an invite now says withdraw.

Why it matters. Nobody loses a task they were promised, and everyone on the team is counted.

Who it’s for. Anyone who claims, reserves or invites people for tasks.

Open the task board

Network, Roadmap and update history moved to the footer.

The Help menu is shorter.

What it is. These three pages now live in the footer at the bottom of every page, and the dashboard and task board have plainer words, helpful empty states and folded filters.

Why it matters. The Help menu holds help, and the rest is easy to find at the bottom.

Who it’s for. Everyone.

Start a project in about four clicks.

A new Simple project start gives you To do, Doing and Done and nothing else.

What it is. Starting a project used to take about 19 clicks. The Simple start sets up three columns, lets you add cards right in each column, and lets you move unpaid cards freely.

Why it matters. Fewer steps means you begin the real work sooner, in a board that feels as simple as Trello.

Who it’s for. Anyone starting a small project or a class group task.

Start a project

Find work goes straight to the live Task Board.

One search box, one Filters button, and a check before you claim a task.

What it is. The Marketplace page now leads with live services and templates, and Find work opens the board of real open tasks.

Why it matters. You see what is open right now and cannot claim by accident.

Who it’s for. Anyone looking for tasks to do.

Find work

Every idea now has a plain-words card.

Money, ownership, manager and tasks for each idea, with a Chat button.

What it is. Idea owners see all their ideas in one dashboard. Each card says in plain words where the idea stands, and an unread dot shows when the idea chat has news.

Why it matters. You can tell where an idea stands without digging.

Who it’s for. Idea owners.

Open ideas

Ratings are now double-blind.

Neither side sees the other's rating until both have rated.

What it is. A rating stays hidden until both people have rated, or until 14 days after approval, whichever comes first.

Why it matters. Honest ratings, with no fear of payback.

Who it’s for. Everyone who works or hires on CoLabEx.

You can change your password in Settings.

A new form asks for your current password and your 2FA code.

What it is. Changing your password signs you out of other devices and sends you an email so you know it happened.

Why it matters. If you think someone else got in, you can shut them out quickly.

Who it’s for. Everyone with an account.

Open Settings

Pages that scrolled sideways on a phone do not any more.

Six layouts were too wide to fit a narrow phone screen, including the front page and the simple home screen. They now fold down instead of pushing the page sideways.

What it is. On a narrow phone, a few parts of CoLabEx were wider than the screen, so the whole page slid left and right when you tried to scroll it. The front page squeezed ten statistics into five columns at any width; the simple home screen used a column that was simply wider than a small phone. The front page now shows those ten in two columns on a phone, five even rows, and the rest fold down the same way. Nothing changes on a laptop or a desktop.

Why it matters. This was reported twice and stayed open both times, because it could not be reproduced on the machine the work happens on. It was found by measuring the layout rules themselves rather than by looking at a screen, which is also why there is now an automatic check that will catch the next one before it ships.

Who it’s for. Anyone using CoLabEx on a phone.

Open the home page

If you use a screen reader, forms now tell you what went wrong.

Every error message in CoLabEx was shown on screen and announced to nobody. A form would fail and, to a screen reader, nothing had changed. That is fixed everywhere, along with 87 controls that had no name at all.

What it is. Two things, both invisible if you use a mouse and a screen. First, every error and warning message in CoLabEx is now announced when it appears, instead of only being shown — there were 195 of them and exactly one was being announced. Second, 87 form controls had no name: 73 dropdowns, which announced only whatever was currently selected and nothing about what they were for, plus fourteen others including the box that shows a newly created API key. Every one now says what it is. Sign-in and sign-up also work properly with a password manager now, which they did not before.

Why it matters. If you fill in a form you cannot see, and it fails, you need to be told. Before this you were not — the page simply sat there. Nothing about how the product looks or behaves with a mouse has changed. The password-manager fix matters for everyone: a manager can now offer to save your CoLabEx password when you sign up, and fill it when you sign in.

Who it’s for. Anyone using a screen reader, and anyone who uses a password manager.

Sign in

Eleven pieces of text that were too faint to read are not any more.

A new check measures every colour pair CoLabEx can render — in all six combinations of light/dark and the three palettes — and it found eleven that fell below the readable line. Most of them only showed up in light mode or on the high-contrast palette, which is exactly where nobody was looking.

What it is. CoLabEx has two themes and three colour palettes, including a colour-blind-friendly one and a high-contrast one. That is six combinations, and a problem can exist in one of them while the other five look fine. There is now a check that works the contrast out for every pair of colours in the stylesheet, in all six, rather than looking at whichever one happens to be on screen. The first run found eleven: timeline bar labels, the unread badge on the message bubble, skill tags, the keyboard-shortcut hint in the search box, the amber warning box, the kanban column counts and a few hover states. All fixed. Two things were checked and deliberately left alone, with the reason written down: the logo wordmark, because brand names are exempt and that is a design decision rather than a bug, and the big round icons on the simple home screen, because each one sits beside its own text label.

Why it matters. If you use the light theme or either of the accessibility palettes, some text was genuinely hard to read and none of it was caught before because it was only ever looked at in the default dark theme. Two smaller things landed with it: there is now a Help link in the footer of every page, so you can reach it without being signed in, and if you come to sign up from your waitlist link, your name and email are already filled in instead of being asked for a second time.

Who it’s for. Everyone, and especially anyone using the light theme or a high-contrast palette.

Change your theme or palette

Your equity is no longer shown as one meaningless percentage.

Holding 2.5% of one project and 2.5% of another is not 5% of anything. The dashboard said it was. It now tells you how many projects you hold a stake in, and sends you to the portfolio for the real figures.

What it is. The Time & earnings card on your dashboard used to add up every equity stake you held and show one combined percentage. Two stakes in two different projects have nothing in common to add, so that number never meant anything. It now shows how many projects you hold equity in, with a link to your portfolio, where each project's real percentage has always been listed correctly. Course credit changed for the same reason — it now counts the tasks you were credited for, because nothing here defines what one credit is. Cash is unchanged: it genuinely does add up.

Why it matters. Nothing you have earned has changed, and no figure has been removed — the per-project percentages were always right on the portfolio and still are. This is about the dashboard no longer showing a summary number that could not be true. It was fixed before it could mislead anybody: no equity has been paid out on CoLabEx yet, so nobody had seen the wrong version.

Who it’s for. Anyone earning equity on a project.

See your portfolio

Checkboxes look like checkboxes now.

A styling rule meant for text boxes was being applied to every checkbox and radio button in CoLabEx, stretching them across the page and pulling them away from their own labels.

What it is. Every tick box in CoLabEx — on sign-up, in Settings, on a project, in a form you fill in — was being stretched to the full width of whatever it sat in and drawn with the border and background of a text field. That is why a tick box sometimes appeared a long way from the words describing it, or on a line of its own. They are now ordinary tick boxes again, and they pick up whichever colour theme you have chosen, including the colour-blind-friendly and high-contrast ones.

Why it matters. Nothing behaves differently and nothing you have saved has changed — this is purely what the controls look like. It is here because it was reported as forms not lining up properly, and it turned out to be one rule affecting every checkbox in the product rather than a problem with any single page.

Who it’s for. Everyone.

You can now see exactly what a company reads about you.

Your profile page shows the same line a project manager sees in the Talent Directory and on your job applications — and your favorites list now shows it too.

What it is. A new section on your profile, 'What a company sees about you', shows the exact summary a company reads when they are deciding who to work with: tasks you have finished, how often work came back, how quickly you turned it round, what PMs said, and your current credentials. It is the same line, from the same place — not a friendlier version written for you. Separately, that line now also appears on your favorites list and under the Reserve and Invite controls on a task, which are the other places a project manager picks somebody.

Why it matters. Last week your record started appearing where hiring decisions are made. It was odd that the one person who could not see it was the person it described. If you keep your profile private, the page says so and still shows you what would be shown — you can decide about the switch knowing what is behind it. Worth knowing: a withdrawn or expired credential is never shown to a company, while your own profile still lists it with its state, so you keep the accurate record either way.

Who it’s for. Freelancers, and anyone hiring through CoLabEx.

See what a company sees

Your track record now shows up where people are choosing who to work with.

Finished work, how often it came back, how quickly you turned it round and what PMs said about you — all of it now appears on the Talent Directory and on a job posting's applicant list, not only on your profile.

What it is. CoLabEx has always worked this out from what actually happened — tasks you finished, how often work was sent back for quality, how long it took from claiming to approval, and how many project managers said they would work with you again. Until now it only appeared on your public profile. It now also appears to a company looking through the Talent Directory, and to whoever is reading applications for a job you applied for.

Why it matters. The people deciding were seeing less than someone who happened to browse your profile. Nothing new is published: it is the same information, in the places where it makes a difference. Send-backs always appear next to how many tasks they are out of, so finishing a lot of work never counts against you. Work sent back because the task itself changed is not counted at all. And nothing sorts anybody by these numbers. If you keep your work history private in Settings, none of it is shown and the company is told it is private rather than being left to assume you have done nothing.

Who it’s for. Freelancers, and anyone hiring through CoLabEx.

See how your record reads

If something you asked for goes unanswered, you will hear about it.

A question, a problem you flagged, or work you sent for review that has sat more than three days now gets a quiet heads-up — so you can chase it or work around it instead of wondering.

What it is. Once a day, if something you are waiting on has gone more than three days with no answer, you get one message listing it. One message covering everything, not one per item, and only once per item — it will not keep reminding you about the same thing.

Why it matters. Until now there was no way to tell the difference between someone working on your question and nobody having seen it. It never tells you off about anyone or says who has not replied, and it does not promise an answer by any particular time — it just tells you it is sitting there, so the decision about what to do next is yours. You can switch it off in Settings.

Who it’s for. Anyone who has asked a question, flagged a problem, or submitted work for review.

Choose what you hear about

One list of everything that can’t move until you answer.

Run more than one project? Questions, blockers and work needing your review now show up in one place instead of hiding inside each project.

What it is. A card at the top of your dashboard listing anything across all your projects that is stuck on you: a question somebody asked, a teammate who has flagged themselves blocked, work submitted and waiting for your review, pushback on a task, or a course appeal. Oldest first, with how long each one has been waiting.

Why it matters. Before this you had to open each project to find out somebody was waiting on you — so the easiest thing to miss was the thing holding someone else up. It only shows items where YOU are the hold-up, not everything that happened, and it disappears entirely when nothing is waiting.

Who it’s for. Anyone running a project, or teaching a class or course.

See your dashboard

Give someone a link that proves you did the work.

A page anyone can open — no account — confirming one piece of your finished work really happened, and that someone else reviewed it.

What it is. In Settings you can now publish a verification link for any finished piece of work on a public project. Send it to an employer or a college and they see what the task was, when you claimed, submitted and finished it, whether a second person reviewed it, and how many times it came back for changes before being approved. They do not need an account.

Why it matters. A line on a CV is a claim; this is something the other person can check for themselves. It never shows what you were paid, and it never names whoever reviewed you — they need to know the review was independent, not who it was. Only work on public projects can be published, you choose what to publish, and you can withdraw any link later.

Who it’s for. Anyone applying for a job, a course, or credit for experience.

Download proof of what you have actually done here.

A readable write-up of your finished work — who set it, when you did it, who reviewed it — to hand to a college or an employer.

What it is. A new download in Settings. It lists the work you have completed on CoLabEx, and for each piece it says who scoped it before you started, when you claimed and submitted it, who reviewed it, and whether they sent it back first. Some colleges award credit for experience if you can evidence it properly; this is built to be the thing you hand them.

Why it matters. Normally the hardest part of proving experience is getting somebody to vouch for it after the fact. Here it was recorded as it happened, by somebody else, with a real review in between. Two things it deliberately will NOT do: it does not write the “what I learned” sections — those are the part being assessed, so they are left blank for you — and it makes no claim about what level your work is at, because only the college can decide that. Work on private client projects is left out, and the document says so.

Who it’s for. Anyone going back to study, applying for something that counts experience, or who just wants a record of what they have done.

A quiz result that tells you what to study — and a way to say it got you wrong.

Courses can now list what they actually teach, your result is broken down by topic, and you can appeal a result you think is unfair.

What it is. Three things. A course can list the specific things you should be able to do when you finish. Your quiz result is then grouped by those — so instead of just a percentage, you see which topics are solid and which are worth another look. And if you think a result is wrong, there is now a button to say so: you write what happened, somebody reads it and has to write back with a real answer.

Why it matters. A percentage tells you that you failed, not what to do about it. The breakdown points you at the part to re-read. And until now there was nowhere to go if you thought a question had marked you wrong unfairly — appealing was simply not possible. If your appeal is upheld you can sit the quiz again straight away rather than waiting out a cooldown.

Who it’s for. Anyone taking a course here, and anyone who has written one — you can list what yours teaches and link each question to it.

Every certificate now has a status anyone can check — and a quiz that checks itself.

A certificate link now says valid, expired or withdrawn, and CoLabEx can now spot its own broken quiz questions from real answers.

What it is. Two things. Share a certificate link and whoever opens it sees whether it is still valid, has expired, or has been withdrawn — and if it was withdrawn, the reason, in plain words. Behind the scenes, CoLabEx now records which individual questions people get right and wrong, and uses that to find questions that look wrong: if the people who do well on a quiz keep missing one particular question, that question usually has the wrong answer marked.

Why it matters. A certificate is only worth something if the person reading it can trust it, and trust means being able to withdraw one that was earned on a faulty question. These courses were written quickly and are labelled as unreviewed for exactly that reason — now the platform can find its own mistakes from real answers instead of waiting for somebody to notice. It pairs with the report-a-problem button added last week: that one catches what a person spots, this one catches what nobody spotted.

Who it’s for. Anyone taking courses here, and anyone — an employer, a school — checking a certificate someone shared with them.

The project whiteboard is a real drawing board now.

Shapes, arrows, connectors, freehand drawing, images — all the things it couldn’t do before.

What it is. Every project’s whiteboard has been rebuilt on Excalidraw. You can draw freehand, add shapes and arrows that stay attached to what they point at, drop in images, write text, and group things together. It saves itself as you work, and you can see who else is looking at the board.

Why it matters. The old board could do sticky notes and text labels and nothing else — which is fine for a list and useless for sketching how something actually fits together. This is a proper drawing surface.

Who it’s for. Anyone who thinks better with a picture than a list.

Open a project

Find hands-on work within a real distance of you.

Type your ZIP code on the Task Board and pick 10, 25, 50 or 100 miles.

What it is. The Task Board has a new box: put in your ZIP code, choose how far you’re willing to travel, and you’ll see local work within that distance — closest first, with the mileage on each one. Before this, searching a place name only matched tasks where somebody had typed that exact name, so a job in the next town over stayed invisible.

Why it matters. “Near me” is a distance, not a spelling. A job twelve miles away in the next town is more useful to you than one forty miles away that happens to share your town’s name. Tasks whose location we can’t pin down still show up in the ordinary search, so nothing disappeared — some things just became easier to find. US ZIP codes for now.

Who it’s for. Anyone looking for hands-on work they can actually get to.

Browse the Task Board

See exactly what changed in a document.

Version history now shows the difference, not just the old copy.

What it is. Open “Version history” on any project document and pick an earlier version: instead of only showing you that whole old copy, it now shows what actually changed — lines added, lines removed, and the unchanged parts collapsed so you can see the edit rather than hunt for it. The full old version is still one click away.

Why it matters. Reading two long documents side by side to spot one changed sentence is a job nobody wants. This answers the question you actually had: what’s different?

Who it’s for. Anyone who keeps notes, plans or runbooks on a project.

Open a project

Project documents finally look like documents — and keep their old versions.

Headings, lists, links and tables now render properly, and every edit keeps the version it replaced.

What it is. Project docs have always accepted markdown, but the reading view showed the raw text — so your '## Heading' stayed as '## Heading' instead of becoming one. That’s fixed: headings, bold, lists, links, quotes, code and tables all render now. And every time a doc is saved with a change, the version it replaced is kept. Open 'Version history' on any doc to read an earlier version, or put it back.

Why it matters. Editing a doc replaces the whole page, so before this one careless save could wipe out something a team had spent real time on, with no way back. Now nothing is lost — including when you restore an old version, because the version you replaced is kept too. It also means your AI assistant can now edit documents for you if you’ve given it write access, which it couldn’t before precisely because an overwrite wasn’t recoverable.

Who it’s for. Anyone using project documents — and anyone who wrote one and wondered why it looked like code.

Open a project

Your assistant can now write things down for you — and it says that it did.

Optional, off by default: let your AI assistant post comments, raise questions, flag problems and create documents.

What it is. When you create an assistant token in Settings there’s a new tick-box: “let it add things too”. Leave it unticked and nothing changes — your assistant can only read. Tick it and it can post a comment on a task, raise a question on a project, flag a problem, and create a document. Everything it writes shows a small “via assistant” label next to your name, and every one of those actions is recorded in your own security activity, naming which token did it.

Why it matters. There’s a deliberate line here, and it isn’t temporary. Your assistant can raise things; it can’t decide them. It cannot approve or reject work, create or claim a task, change what anything pays, log time, or delete anything — those either move real money, commit you to doing work, or can’t be undone, so they stay with you. The label matters too: anything it writes is still yours and you’re answerable for it, but anyone reading it should be able to tell whether a person typed the words.

Who it’s for. Anyone who already connected an assistant, or has been waiting for it to be able to do more than look.

Set it up in Settings

Here’s what it costs: free, or a flat price for the whole company.

Free for up to 5 users. Team is $12/month flat and Business is $29/month flat, for the whole company — unlimited users, no per-seat fee, no seat minimum. Paid plans are coming soon.

What it is. There’s a pricing page now, at /pricing. Free is up to 5 users, 1 active project and 1 GB of storage. Team is $12 a month, flat for the whole company, with unlimited users and 10 projects. Business is $29 a month, flat, with unlimited users and unlimited projects. The paid plans are coming soon and nobody is being charged yet. The marketplace and the education features are free on every plan.

Why it matters. Most tools charge per person, and several of them won’t sell you fewer than three or five seats — which is how a “$9 a head” tool becomes $27 or $125 before you’ve added anyone. We don’t do that, and freelancers never pay a subscription at all. The page also has a section saying where we’re NOT the cheapest, because if you’re one or two people there genuinely are cheaper paid plans out there — though at that size our free plan covers you, and some of the big tools’ free plans stop at two people. When plan limits start, they only stop you adding more beyond your plan — nothing you already have is removed or hidden.

Who it’s for. Anyone deciding whether to use CoLabEx, and any company wondering what it will cost them.

See the pricing

Moving in? Bring your finished work with you.

Importing a task list can now bring its already-done rows across as a record of what you built.

What it is. When you import a CSV from another tool, you can tick a box to bring the finished rows too. They come in as history: a plain record of what was already done, so your project page shows the whole story rather than only what is left.

Why it matters. Before this, finished rows were simply left out, and a project you had been running for a year arrived looking like it had just started. Two things are deliberate about how it works: imported history carries no value, and it never counts toward anybody’s skill points or completed-work totals — because CoLabEx did not see that work happen, and saying it did would make everyone’s record mean less. Each one is clearly marked as imported, and you can still undo the whole import if you got the file wrong.

Who it’s for. Anyone moving a project in from another tool.

Import a task list

See everywhere you’re signed in — and end anything you don’t recognise.

A real list of your signed-in devices, a one-click sign out everywhere, and the option to stop being asked for a code on your own laptop.

What it is. Settings now has “Where you’re signed in”: every browser currently signed in to your account, what it is and when it was last used. End any one of them, or sign out everywhere else in a single click — you stay signed in where you are, because if you’re checking this you probably want to keep fixing things. Signing out properly ends that session now, rather than just forgetting it on that device.

Why it matters. “Is someone else in my account?” had no answer before this, and the only way to end another session was to change your password. There’s also a new option if you use two-factor: tick “don’t ask on this device for 30 days” when you sign in, so your own laptop stops asking every day. It only ever covers the one account that granted it, you can forget it any time from the same list, and a password reset forgets it automatically — because that’s the moment you’d assume something had leaked. Changing your main email address now asks for your password again too: that address is where password resets go, so it’s worth one extra step.

Who it’s for. Everyone, and especially anyone sharing a computer.

Open Settings

On the waitlist? You can check your place any time now.

A link of your own that shows where you are in the queue, with real numbers and no invented dates.

What it is. When you join the early-access waitlist you now get a link to keep. Open it whenever you like and it shows your live place in line, how many people are waiting with you, and how many of the early-access spots are still open.

Why it matters. Before this you were told your number once and then had no way to see it again. Everything on the page is a real count, and it goes down as spots get filled. One thing we deliberately do not do is guess a date — we open the next group when the people already in are having a good time, and we would rather say that than make up a week. Save the link: it is the only way in, because asking for your email address instead would mean we could tell anyone who asked whether a given address is on the list.

Who it’s for. Anyone waiting for an early-access spot.

Leaving? We will help you hand things over.

The things that stop you closing your account now come with a way to sort them out.

What it is. If you try to delete your account, CoLabEx tells you what needs handling first — unfinished tasks you claimed, a class you are running, a company only you own. Now each of those comes with either a one-click fix or a link straight to the page that can do it. Give your claimed work back in one click; end a class in one click.

Why it matters. Knowing what is in the way is only half of it — you still had to go and find the right page. Two things are worth saying about how it works: giving work back never un-assigns anybody else who is also on it, so your teammates keep theirs; and handing a company to another owner is still a link rather than a button, because picking who gets it is your decision, not ours. Separately, people who have closed their accounts now show as “Former member” rather than “Deleted user”, which read like something had gone wrong.

Who it’s for. Anyone closing their account — and everyone who worked with them.

Open Settings

Importing a task list now brings its shape with it.

Lists, labels, subtasks and who was on what — real, not a line of text in the description.

What it is. When you import a CSV from another tool, the columns it used to turn into notes now become the real thing: your lists become sections, your tags become labels you can filter by, a “Parent task” column becomes real subtasks, and an assignee column can put people straight onto their work. The preview tells you exactly what it is about to set up before you commit to it.

Why it matters. Before this, the shape of your board arrived as prose — readable, but nothing you could sort or filter by, so you rebuilt it by hand. Two deliberate limits: a person is only matched by their email address, because guessing from a name could hand someone else’s work to the wrong person; and on a task that carries real money nobody is assigned automatically, because being assigned to paid work is what decides who gets paid, and that should be your own choice to claim it. Undo still works on everything an import created.

Who it’s for. Anyone moving a project in from Asana, Jira, Trello, monday.com or a spreadsheet.

Import a task list

You can mark a project finished now — and see who changed what, and why.

A real Project status card, reasons recorded alongside decisions, and the whole trail downloadable.

What it is. A project page now has a status card: mark it complete, pause it, or reopen it. Marking a project complete is also what opens up turning it into a company. Alongside that, the audit trail now records the REASON someone gave — why a task’s value changed, why work was sent back, why a client’s link was switched off — and you can download a project’s whole trail as a spreadsheet.

Why it matters. “Who changed that, and why?” is the question that comes up when something has gone sideways, and until now the trail could answer the first half but not the second. If a client ever asks what happened on a job, there is now a file you can send them, oldest entry first, with the reasons in it. Marking a project complete leaves any unfinished tasks exactly where they are — and records how many there were, so closing one is never a quiet tidy-up.

Who it’s for. Project managers, and anyone who has ever had to reconstruct what happened.

Open a project

Ask your own AI assistant about your projects.

Connect Claude (or any assistant that speaks MCP) to CoLabEx and ask it what’s overdue, or where you wrote something down. Free on every plan.

What it is. In Settings there’s now a “Connect your AI assistant” section. Create a token, paste it into your assistant, and it can read your workspace — your projects, your tasks, your documents, comments and your own messages. Then you can just ask: what’s overdue on this project, which tasks are mine this week, where’s the note where we settled on the price.

Why it matters. It reads only — it can never change, claim or approve anything — and it only ever sees what you could already open yourself. It’s free on every plan with nothing metered, which is worth saying because it often isn’t elsewhere: some tools require a business plan before an outside assistant can connect at all, and others spend your monthly AI allowance on every question it asks. You can revoke a token any time, and it stops working immediately.

Who it’s for. Anyone who already uses an AI assistant and would rather ask than go looking.

Set it up in Settings

Search now looks inside what you wrote.

Documents, task descriptions, comments, answers and your messages — not just titles. And every result shows the line that matched.

What it is. Until now the search box matched titles and names only, so a project document was findable just by what you called it — never by what was in it. Now it searches the contents too: documents, task descriptions, comments, the answers to questions, and your own messages. Each result shows a snippet of the line that matched, so you can tell which one you want without opening all of them.

Why it matters. The most useful things in a project are usually written down somewhere — the decision in a comment, the requirement in a task description, the answer someone gave three weeks ago. If you can only search titles, all of that is effectively lost the moment you forget where you put it. You still only ever see things you could already open: your own messages stay yours, and nothing became visible that wasn’t before.

Who it’s for. Anyone who writes things down — so, everyone.

Try it (Cmd/Ctrl+K)

Find work near you — and hear about it when it’s posted.

A “Where?” box on the Task Board, plus a daily note when work appears in the kinds of work you’ve already done.

What it is. Two things. Type a place into the new “Where?” box on the Task Board and you’ll get work in that area — combine it with the local/remote filter to see only hands-on jobs near you. And if you’ve completed work or courses on CoLabEx, you’ll get one message a day listing any new tasks posted in those kinds of work. One message, not one per task.

Why it matters. Local jobs already said where they were, but you couldn’t search it — you had to scroll and read. Now you can just ask. And you no longer have to keep checking the board to catch something good: if work turns up that matches what you’ve actually done, we’ll tell you. It’s based on your real history, never a guess, and you can switch it off in Settings whenever you like.

Who it’s for. Anyone looking for work — especially hands-on, local work.

Find work

Your client can approve the work — no account, no extra seat.

Send the client link you already use, and the person paying for the work can say “yes, that’s what I wanted” — or ask for changes.

What it is. On a client link, you can now switch on approvals. Whoever you send it to sees the deliverables and can approve one, ask for changes (with a note saying what needs fixing), or take their decision back later. You get told straight away, and every decision stays on the record — so you can see they asked for changes first and approved afterwards.

Why it matters. Chasing a client for a clear yes is one of the most tedious parts of finishing a job, and “I thought you'd approved it” is one of the most expensive misunderstandings. This puts the answer in writing, in the project, without asking your client to make an account or costing you a seat. It is feedback and a record — not a contract or a signature — and the page says so plainly to whoever clicks it.

Who it’s for. Anyone doing work for a client, and the clients themselves.

My projects

Seen a task that's really three jobs in one? Say so before you take it.

If a posted task is too big, underpaid, or too vague to pick up, tell the project manager first — and get a real answer back.

What it is. On any open task you haven't claimed, there's a short form: this is really several tasks, the pay doesn't match the work, I can't tell what's being asked for, or something else. Add a line about what would need to change. The project manager gets it, and replies — they might split the task up, change the amount, add detail, or explain why it stays as it is.

Why it matters. Before this, your only two options on a badly-scoped task were to take it anyway or scroll past. Neither helps anyone: you lose work you could have done, and the person who posted it never finds out why nobody picked it up. This gives both sides a way to fix it first. It also stays private between you and the project manager — it is never shown publicly on the board.

Who it’s for. Anyone browsing the Task Board, and anyone posting work on it.

Find work

Work in two-week cycles, not one endless list.

Give a stretch of time a name, a goal and a set of tasks — and see at a glance how much of it is actually done.

What it is. A sprint is a fixed window with a set of tasks committed to it. Name it, give it dates and a goal, then pull tasks in from your backlog. Each sprint shows how many of its tasks are finished. One sprint runs at a time, so starting a new one closes out the last.

Why it matters. A long task list tells you everything that exists, but never what this week is for. A sprint answers that question, and the count answers the next one honestly — not a guess at a percentage, just how many of the things you committed to are done. Deleting a sprint never deletes the work inside it; those tasks go straight back to your backlog.

Who it’s for. Any team that likes working in cycles — you don't have to set your project up a particular way to use it.

My projects

Describe how your process works. Get a draft workflow back.

Type out how a job actually runs at your shop, in your own words, and get an ordered set of workflow steps to review.

What it is. On a workflow's page, describe a repeatable process — who does what, in what order — and you'll get 3-8 suggested steps in the sequence they'd really happen. Each one has a button that fills in the normal step form, so you review and add them one at a time.

Why it matters. Setting up a multi-step workflow from a blank page is the slow part, especially the first time. This gets you a first draft to react to instead. And it's deliberately limited: the AI drafts the shape of the process, never the pay or who does the work — those stay yours to set, every time.

Who it’s for. Project managers setting up a repeatable process.

My projects

Just finished a task? Here's more work like it.

Submit your work and you'll see other open tasks in the same category with the same company — right when you're most likely to want one.

What it is. After you submit a task, up to three other open tasks appear: same category you just worked in, same company. They're ordered by the kind of pay you just earned first — cash next to cash, equity next to equity — highest first within each. If there's nothing that genuinely matches, nothing shows.

Why it matters. Finishing a piece of work is the natural moment to pick up the next one, but it used to mean going back to the Task Board and searching all over again. This puts the relevant options where you already are — and keeps you building with a company you've already worked with.

Who it’s for. Freelancers finishing a task.

Find work

Every kind of link on a task now previews inline — the whole set is done.

Click an @mention and see who they are. Click a workflow step and see the whole sequence. Nothing takes you away from the page anymore.

What it is. The last two pieces of click-to-preview: click someone's @mention in a comment and see their name, bio, and rating right there. Click a task's 'part of workflow' reference and see every step in that sequence — done, active, or still waiting — with the current one highlighted. Combined with task links and milestone links from earlier this week, every cross-reference on a task now expands inline instead of navigating you away.

Why it matters. Following a reference used to mean losing your place — a new page, then a back button, then finding where you were. Now the answer is right there, and you never actually leave.

Who it’s for. Everyone working inside a task, especially anyone using a multi-step workflow or tagging teammates in comments.

Open a task

Doing your own project's work? One click finishes it now.

If you're the PM and the one doing the task, submitting your work now closes the whole loop — no separate approval trip back to yourself.

What it is. When you're both the project's PM and the assignee on a task, submitting your work now marks it complete in that same click, writing the exact same real payout record a normal approval would. Every task with a real, separate reviewer works exactly as before.

Why it matters. A round trip to approve your own work never made much sense when there's no one else to check it. This keeps a real, deliberate action — not a silent skip — while cutting out the pointless extra step.

Who it’s for. Anyone running their own solo project.

Open a task

See what a task links to, without ever leaving the page.

Click a linked task and it opens right there — status, value, who's on it — no new tab, no losing your place.

What it is. A parent-task reference, or a task another one is waiting on or blocking, now expands inline when you click it — the real status, category, value, and assignees, right under the link, with an option to open the full task if you need to.

Why it matters. Clicking away to check something and then hunting for your way back is exactly the kind of friction that makes a tool feel slower than it is. Now the answer is right there.

Who it’s for. Anyone working through subtasks or dependencies.

Open a task

Some questions you can answer yourself.

Not every question needs the PM's attention. Now you can say so, and close it out yourself.

What it is. When you ask a question on a project, a new checkbox lets you say whether it genuinely needs the PM's decision or whether you're just noting something you'll figure out on your own. Self-resolvable questions get their own badge, and you can answer your own once you've worked it out.

Why it matters. Not everything that crosses your mind mid-task needs to sit in someone else's queue. This keeps a real record of what you were working through without making the PM the bottleneck for things you can handle yourself.

Who it’s for. Anyone working a task who jots down open questions as they go.

Open a project

Never lose your typing again, and clearer task statuses everywhere.

Your submission notes now save themselves as you pause. Talk instead of type if you'd rather. And every task list finally shows a real, readable status.

What it is. Typing notes into a task submission now saves automatically to this device a moment after you stop typing — no save button, with a real confirmation so you know it's safe. A microphone button lets you dictate instead, on browsers that support it. And every task list across the platform — a project's own list, company and team workspaces — now shows a real status like 'In progress' or 'Sent back for changes' instead of a raw code.

Why it matters. Losing typed work to an accidental refresh, or squinting at a status code instead of a plain word, are exactly the kind of small frictions that make a tool feel harder to trust. Both are fixed at the source.

Who it’s for. Everyone submitting work on a task, and anyone reading a task list.

Open a task

See subtask progress at a glance, and a tidier sidebar.

A task with subtasks now shows real progress right in the header. And the sidebar's smaller sections tidy themselves away or open up based on how you like to work.

What it is. A 'N/M done' badge now shows on any task with subtasks — right in the header, and again on the Subtasks card. And the task page's sidebar groups its smaller sections (checklist, labels, time log, dependencies, links) under labeled headers you can open or close, defaulting based on your own Tech level setting.

Why it matters. You shouldn't have to open a task and scroll to know how much of it is actually done, or wade through every small setting to get to the one you need. Both are one click away either way — nothing's removed, just organized around how you actually work.

Who it’s for. Anyone managing tasks with subtasks, and anyone who wants a simpler or a fuller task page by choice.

Open a task

Your task page finally has a real layout.

Everything you need to DO is on the left. Everything about the task's status is on the right, always in the same place.

What it is. The task page now has two clear sides: a main column with the story — submit your work, follow the conversation, see what's been submitted — and a sidebar with everything else — who's assigned, the checklist, labels, time logged, links. No more scrolling past a dozen stacked boxes in whatever order they happen to sit in.

Why it matters. A task page should tell you what to do next at a glance, not make you hunt for it. This puts the action you're most likely taking — submitting your work — right at the top, and keeps the status details in one predictable place instead of scattered down the page.

Who it’s for. Anyone working a task past the simplest view — freelancers, PMs, and students alike.

Open a task

Your workspace numbers are buttons now, and so is a real question.

The task counts on your company or team page now take you straight there — and asking a real question no longer looks like just sending a chat message.

What it is. The stat numbers at the top of a company or team page — Projects, open tasks, Members, and more — now click straight to that tab instead of just sitting there. And a task's own page has a genuinely new "Ask a question" button: a real, one-time decision for your PM to answer, kept separate from "Message the team," which is just a quick chat note.

Why it matters. Small friction adds up — a number you can't click, or a button that quietly does something different than what it says, makes the whole tool feel harder to trust. Both are fixed at the source, not just the surface.

Who it’s for. Everyone using a company or team workspace, and anyone working a task.

Open a task

Build a workflow once. Watch it run itself.

Approve one step in a workflow, and the next one opens on its own — assigned to the right person, or ready for anyone to claim.

What it is. A workflow is a named, ordered chain of task steps you set up once — "gather requirements," then "build it," then "review it," each with its own category and either a specific person or open to whoever picks it up. Approve one step and the next one's task appears automatically, already priced and assigned if you set that up ahead of time — or it asks you to confirm it with one click if you didn't.

Why it matters. Repeatable work shouldn't need someone to remember what comes next every single time. Set the chain up once, and CoLabEx keeps it moving — never guessing a dollar figure, never skipping the approval a real task always needs.

Who it’s for. Anyone running the same kind of project over and over — client onboarding, a hiring pipeline, a content pipeline.

Build a workflow

A place for quick decisions, and a to-do list that keeps up.

Not every open item is a task — some are just a question someone needs to answer. And your to-do list now updates the moment something's done.

What it is. A new Questions panel on every project: ask a quick decision-needed question, the PM or instructor answers once, and it's done — no status to track, no action to take. Plus a fix so your Tasks & Messages panel updates the instant a task is claimed, submitted, or approved, instead of waiting for you to change pages.

Why it matters. Not everything needs a full task with steps to follow — sometimes you just need a decision. And nothing's more confusing than opening a task from your to-do list only to find it was already finished.

Who it’s for. Anyone working on a project with someone else.

See it on a project page

A bottom nav bar for your phone, and shortcuts for power users.

Using CoLabEx on your phone just got easier to navigate — and if you like the keyboard, there's now a cheat-sheet for that too.

What it is. On a phone screen, a bottom bar gives you Home, Tasks, Messages and Search without scrolling back to the top. And if your Tech level is set to Advanced or Expert, press ? anywhere to see keyboard shortcuts for jumping around fast.

Why it matters. Reaching the top of the screen on a phone is awkward. Now the things you check most are one thumb-tap away at the bottom, no matter how far you've scrolled.

Who it’s for. Anyone using CoLabEx on a phone, and keyboard-first power users.

Try it on your phone

Tasks matched to you, and a leaderboard to see where you stand.

The Task Board now points out work that fits your own skills, and you can see who's ranked highest in a category.

What it is. The Task Board shows a "Recommended for you" strip of open tasks matched to your own completed work and courses — no more scrolling everything to find what fits. A new Leaderboard, linked from the Talent Directory, ranks who's earned the most skill points in a category.

Why it matters. You've already built up real skill points from finished work and courses — now that shows up as work that fits you, not just a number on your own profile.

Who it’s for. Freelancers browsing the Task Board, and anyone curious where they rank.

See the Task Board

Have an idea, or just need something done? We ask now.

The homepage now asks what you actually need, and points you the right way.

What it is. Right on the homepage: pick "I have an idea to build" for a full project, or "I just need something done" for one specific task — with quick examples like resume help, a business plan, or tax help to get you started.

Why it matters. Not everyone has a full idea. Sometimes you just need one thing done, and now the very first thing you see helps you find the right path.

Who it’s for. Anyone landing on CoLabEx for the first time.

See it on the homepage

Stop starting from a blank page.

Browse real starter templates for software, marketing, events, and more — no account needed to look.

What it is. A new public page shows real starting-task checklists for common project types — software builds, marketing campaigns, events, content production, construction, and consulting. Pick one and it carries straight into a new project.

Why it matters. A blank page is intimidating. A real head start isn't.

Who it’s for. Anyone starting a new project, and anyone curious what CoLabEx looks like before signing up.

Browse templates

See a task's pull request status without leaving CoLabEx.

Link a task to its GitHub pull request and see whether it's open, merged, or closed, right there.

What it is. A task can now link to its GitHub pull request. Once linked, you'll see a live status right on the task — Open, Draft, Merged, or Closed — pulled straight from GitHub.

Why it matters. No more checking GitHub separately to see if a task's code is actually done. Works right away, for any public repository, with nothing to set up.

Who it’s for. Anyone doing software work tracked on CoLabEx.

See what's coming to CoLabEx before it's built.

A new gallery shows what's planned next — clearly labeled previews, not live features yet.

What it is. A new "Roadmap previews" page shows what we're planning to build next — things like a task escrow system, an add-on marketplace, and a native companion app — as clearly labeled, example-only previews. Nothing on these pages is live yet.

Why it matters. We'd rather show you the whole plan honestly, including the parts that still need legal review, than build in silence and surprise you later.

Who it’s for. Anyone curious what's coming next.

Browse previews

Start a timer instead of doing the math later.

Click Start when you begin working on a task, click Stop when you're done — the time logs itself.

What it is. Every task's "Time logged" section now has a Start timer button right alongside the existing manual entry form. Start it when you sit down to work, watch it tick live, and click Stop when you're done — it logs the exact time automatically. You can only run one timer at a time, so it always stays clear what you're actively working on.

Why it matters. Typing in hours after the fact means guessing. A real clock means your logged time — and anything built on top of it, like project reports and estimate calibration — reflects what actually happened.

Who it’s for. Anyone doing billable or tracked work on a task.

Post a task without setting up a whole project.

Need something done — remote or local, any category — post it and let someone claim it. No project setup required.

What it is. You can now post a one-off task straight to the Task Board — anything from writing to accounting to home repair — without creating a project first. Tag it local if you need someone in person, or leave it remote. CoLabEx reviews it (the same quick look every real, paid project gets) before it goes live.

Why it matters. Not everything is a whole project. Sometimes you just need one thing done, and now you don't have to figure out CoLabEx's project setup to ask for it.

Who it’s for. Anyone who needs a specific task done — and freelancers looking for real, one-off work to claim.

Post a task

A first look at CoLab Bucks — coming once the legal review clears.

See what a purchasable, dollar-pegged balance would look like on CoLabEx.

What it is. A new preview page shows what's planned: a balance you could buy with real dollars and redeem back 1:1, used across features like the Equity Marketplace. It's a preview only — no real balance, no real money moves through it yet.

Why it matters. A currency-like balance is real, regulated territory (money transmission), and we'd rather show the honest plan and work through that review properly than rush it.

Who it’s for. Anyone curious what's coming next on CoLabEx.

See the preview

A first look at the Equity Marketplace — coming once the legal review clears.

See what it'll look like to sell equity you've earned on CoLabEx, by auction or a fixed price.

What it is. A new preview page shows what's planned for reselling equity you've earned through completed work — either through a live auction or a fixed "Buy It Now" price. It's a preview only: no real listings, no real equity or money moves through it yet.

Why it matters. Buying and selling equity between people is a real, regulated activity, and we want to get it right before it's live — not rush it. We'd rather show you the plan honestly, label it clearly as coming soon, and work through the real legal review than pretend it's ready before it is.

Who it’s for. Anyone earning equity through CoLabEx work who'd want the option to sell it before it pays out on its own.

See the preview

See exactly where the money — or the equity — goes, right on the homepage.

A new visual on the landing page shows the real default payout split, before you ever create an account.

What it is. The homepage now shows a simple bar breaking down where a task's payout goes, for both cash and equity: the majority to whoever actually does the work, a share to the project manager who runs it, and a small platform share to CoLabEx.

Why it matters. We've always believed the split should be visible and never a surprise. Now you don't have to sign up to see it — it's right there before you decide whether CoLabEx is for you.

Who it’s for. Anyone weighing whether to bring a project, or their own work, to CoLabEx.

See it on the homepage

A quick, honest note: we started keeping our own anonymous visit stats.

No ads, nothing sold, nothing third-party — just enough for us to see which pages actually get used.

What it is. We now keep simple, first-party visit statistics — which pages get viewed, roughly how long a visit lasts, and whether it's someone new or returning. It's tied to a random id in your browser, never to your name, even if you're signed in.

Why it matters. We're building this platform to actually be used, and that means learning what people find valuable and what falls flat. We'd rather tell you plainly than bury it — see the updated Privacy Policy for the full detail.

Who it’s for. Everyone using CoLabEx.

Read the Privacy Policy

Pick how much you see on screen.

A new Tech level setting — Beginner to Expert — plus a compact density option for anyone who wants to fit more on the page.

What it is. Settings now has a Tech level choice — Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, or Expert — describing how much shows up on your screen at once, separate from your Home screen choice. Appearance also gained a Density option: Comfortable (today's spacing) or Compact, for tighter layouts.

Why it matters. Not everyone wants the same amount of detail on screen. Now you can choose what fits how you actually work, and change it any time.

Who it’s for. Everyone.

Open Settings

Control who on your team sees which project.

Company owners and managers can now grant a specific person access to a specific project — instead of everyone seeing everything.

What it is. If you run a company on CoLabEx, you can now grant a team member read (or read/write) access to a specific project from the new Project access tab. Owners and managers still see every project automatically — this is for giving a plain team member exactly the access they need, no more.

Why it matters. Not everyone on your team needs to see every project's budget and details. Now you decide who sees what, one project at a time.

Who it’s for. Company owners and managers.

Open your company

Describe your idea. Get a real plan back.

A new planning wizard asks a few questions, then drafts real milestones, tasks, and subtasks for you to review and create.

What it is. The new planning wizard on a project's page asks what you're trying to build, follows up with a few clarifying questions, then drafts a full plan — milestones, tasks, and even subtasks — organized the way a project actually breaks down. Nothing is created until you review the draft, uncheck anything you don't want, set a real value for each task, and say go.

Why it matters. Turning a raw idea into an organized project is one of the hardest parts of getting started, especially without a project-management background. This does the first pass for you, in your own words, so you start from a real structure instead of a blank page.

Who it’s for. Project managers starting a new initiative or restructuring an existing one.

Open a project

See a suggested value while you're still creating a task.

Enter an hour estimate on a new task and CoLabEx shows what it'd be worth, right there — one click to use it.

What it is. When creating a task, entering an hour estimate now shows a live suggested value based on the project's remaining budget and every other open task's own estimate — with a one-click button to use it. It's the same suggestion the project-wide budget preview already offered, just available earlier, while you're still filling in the form.

Why it matters. You shouldn't have to create a task first, then go find the budget tool, then come back and edit the value. Now the suggestion is right where you need it.

Who it’s for. Project managers creating tasks.

Add a task

A shared whiteboard for every project.

Sticky notes and quick text labels on a freeform board — updates appear live for everyone with it open.

What it is. Every project now has its own whiteboard: a big, scrollable space where anyone on the project can drop a sticky note or a plain text label, drag it around, and edit it right there. It's for the messy, early stage — jotting down ideas, roughing out a process — before anything becomes a real task or doc. Changes show up live for everyone with the board open.

Why it matters. Not every idea deserves a task yet. Sometimes you just need a place to think out loud with your team before things get formal.

Who it’s for. Anyone working on a project, especially early on.

Open a project

A smarter way to split a budget across tasks.

Give a task an estimated hour range, and let CoLabEx suggest how to split your budget across your open tasks.

What it is. When creating a task, you can now give it a low/high hour range instead of one firm number — handy when you're not fully sure yet how big it really is. As more of your team's completed work gets logged, CoLabEx starts showing you a real pattern: "based on similar tasks here, real hours tend to run about X% over or under what was estimated." And on the project page, a project manager can preview a suggested budget split across every open task, based on those estimated hours — always just a suggestion you apply yourself, one task at a time, never automatic.

Why it matters. Pricing out a big batch of work by guessing at each task individually is hard, especially early on. This gives you a real, computed starting point built from your own project's own history — you stay in control of every number, but you're not starting from nothing.

Who it’s for. Project managers planning out a budget.

Open your projects

Ran into something unexpected? Propose your own subtask.

If you flag an issue while working on a task, you can now propose turning it into its own subtask — the project manager reviews it before anyone sees it.

What it is. If you're assigned to a task and flag an issue on it, you can now propose turning that issue into a real subtask with its own suggested value — not just the project manager's call anymore. It stays hidden until the project manager reviews and approves it, so nothing appears on the task board unapproved.

Why it matters. Sometimes real, unplanned work turns up mid-task, and the person doing the work is often the first to spot it. This gives them a real way to raise it, without skipping the review step that keeps a project's budget honest.

Who it’s for. Anyone assigned to a task, and the project managers reviewing what comes in.

Open your tasks

Design your own dashboard widget.

Your own text, your own colors, and a list pulled from a web address you connect.

What it is. Add a Custom widget to your Dashboard and make it yours: write your own text with live numbers dropped in (like how many tasks are open), style it with a safe set of CSS, and — if you want — connect a web address that returns a list and show its items. On a task, a project manager can now also turn a reported issue into a subtask in one step; the issue resolves itself when the subtask is approved.

Why it matters. Everyone tracks something a little different. Now your dashboard can show the thing you actually care about, in a way that suits you, without waiting for us to build it.

Who it’s for. Anyone with a dashboard, and project managers handling blockers.

Open your Dashboard

Bigger quizzes, a proficiency level — and an undo for imports.

Every course quiz now has at least 25 questions and shows your level; imported a task list by mistake? One click undoes it.

What it is. Every course quiz now has at least 25 questions, so your score is a more meaningful measure of what you know. When you pass, your score shows as a level — Foundational, Working, Proficient or Expert. The 14 nursing skill lessons (blood pressure, IV therapy, wound care and more) now have quizzes too; they are knowledge checks, so they give you a score but not a badge. Separately, if you import a task list from a spreadsheet and it comes in wrong, an Undo button removes the imported tasks nobody has started on and keeps any that have been worked on.

Why it matters. A short quiz can be passed by luck; 25 questions is much harder to guess your way through, and a named level tells you and others where you stand. And nobody should be afraid to try an import because they can't take it back.

Who it’s for. Learners and anyone moving a task list into CoLabEx.

Open the Education Center

Lock your account tighter — and take your data with you.

Turn on two-factor sign-in, download a copy of everything you have here, or delete your account yourself.

What it is. Two-factor sign-in adds a 6-digit code from an app on your phone (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy and others) to your password, so a stolen or guessed password is not enough. It is free and uses no text messages; you also get ten one-time recovery codes in case you lose your phone. In Settings you can now also download a copy of your data as one file, see your own recent security activity, and delete your account yourself. Project managers get an audit trail on each project showing who approved what.

Why it matters. Your account holds your work, your history and, for some people, records of what they are owed. It should be very hard for anyone else to get into, and it should always be yours to take with you or to close.

Who it’s for. Everyone. Admins, company owners and project managers most of all.

Open Settings

Locked out? Now there's a way back in.

Reset a forgotten password, confirm your email, and add backup emails so a school address never strands you.

What it is. You can now reset a forgotten password with an emailed link, confirm your email when you sign up, and add backup email addresses in Settings. A confirmed backup can be used to sign in and to reset your password — and you can make it your main email when you graduate. Too many wrong passwords briefly pauses sign-in to keep guessers out.

Why it matters. Accounts should be easy to get into for you and hard for anyone else. Your school email will stop working someday; with a backup email you keep your account, your work and your learning history without starting over.

Who it’s for. Everyone — especially students who sign up with a school address.

Manage your email addresses

Already have a task list? Bring it with you.

Import your tasks from a spreadsheet or another tool in a few clicks — no retyping.

What it is. Upload a CSV file (most project tools and every spreadsheet can make one), check that we matched your columns correctly, preview exactly what will happen, then import. Names, descriptions, due dates, priorities and time estimates all come across.

Why it matters. Nobody wants to rebuild a whole project by hand just to try something new. The preview means there are no surprises, and anything we can't bring across — like who a task was assigned to — is kept as a note on the task instead of being lost.

Who it’s for. Anyone moving a project over from a spreadsheet, Asana, Jira, monday.com or a similar tool.

Studying complex med-surg? Here's a free study track.

Free readings from open textbooks plus a practice run that shows which topics need more work.

What it is. A guided path through the high-acuity topics — shock, cardiac emergencies, respiratory failure, neurological emergencies, fluids and electrolytes, endocrine emergencies, kidney failure, GI and liver failure, blood and sepsis, and burns. Each topic links to the free chapter to read, and the practice run asks a few questions from every area.

Why it matters. The practice run tells you where you're weakest, then points you to exactly what to read — so you spend your study time where it counts, retake it, and watch each area improve. Every answer comes with the reasoning behind it.

Who it’s for. Nursing students in a complex medical-surgical course.

Open the study track

Your class, one code away.

Teachers hand out a short code; students type it in and they're in class. That's the whole thing.

What it is. A teacher makes a class and gets a code like K7M2-9QXR and a join link. Students type the code or open the link and join — even if they've never used CoLabEx. Teachers can also paste in a list of emails, keep the class private, or post it publicly if their school is approved.

Why it matters. Getting a whole class set up is usually where new tools lose people. If you first arrive through a class, you see a simple view with just your classes — and one button to open up everything else whenever you're ready. Classes that have ended stay in your history.

Who it’s for. Teachers and professors, and their students.

Join a class

Find your weak spots — then fix them.

Take a short practice run, see which topics need work, study just those, and watch your scores climb.

What it is. A practice loop for NCLEX-RN preparation. Answer a mix of questions from every area of the exam, get results ranked weakest first with the reasoning for every answer, then jump straight to the free reading for the topics you missed and retake.

Why it matters. Most people study what they already know because it feels good. This shows you what you don't know yet, so your time goes where it helps. These are original study questions, not real exam questions, and a score here doesn't predict a pass — but the habit of finding and fixing weak areas is what works.

Who it’s for. Nursing students preparing for the NCLEX-RN.

Start a practice run

Nursing, from LPN to NP — laid out step by step.

Four learning paths (LPN, RN, BSN, NP) with the individual skills — taking blood pressure, starting an IV, reading a heart rhythm — each with a free lesson.

What it is. Each level of nursing has its own path: the exam to prepare for, the foundation skills, and free readings from open textbooks. The same skill lesson shows up in every path that needs it.

Why it matters. You can see the whole road, not just the next class. Where a free, trustworthy resource doesn't exist yet we say so, instead of pointing you at something unchecked. These lessons teach the knowledge behind a skill — hands-on ability is something your instructor checks in person.

Who it’s for. Anyone studying or considering nursing.

Browse learning paths

Make it comfortable for your eyes.

Dark, light or match-your-device — plus color-blind-friendly colors, high contrast and bigger text.

What it is. A few simple choices in Settings change how CoLabEx looks: the overall theme, a color scheme designed to be readable with color-blindness or low vision, and the text size. Your choice follows you to any device.

Why it matters. Software should fit the person, not the other way around. We picked the color-blind-friendly colors by measuring how easy they are to tell apart, not by eye — and status is always shown in words as well as color.

Who it’s for. Everyone — especially anyone who's ever squinted at a screen.

Open appearance settings

A home screen that asks: what do you want to do next?

A few big, clear buttons and what's due today — with the full dashboard one click away.

What it is. New accounts start on a simple home: big labeled buttons for the things people do most, what's due today, and recent activity. The full dashboard is still there, arranged as compact cards you can reorder. On a project, a task can show as just the task plus a few buttons — add my work, ask a question, flag a problem, comment.

Why it matters. A powerful tool shouldn't make a beginner feel lost. Start simple, and unlock more as you need it — nothing is taken away, just tucked out of the way until you ask for it.

Who it’s for. New users, and anyone who likes things uncluttered.

Your tasks, messages and favorite pages — one tap away.

A slide-out panel that stays out of the way until you want it, and a one-click star to save any page.

What it is. A slim tab on the edge of the screen opens a panel with your in-progress tasks, your conversations and the pages you've saved. Click the star in the top bar to save the page you're on.

Why it matters. It gives you a quick way to jump around without stealing screen space from the work in front of you. And it came straight from testers telling us a permanent side column made pages feel cramped.

Who it’s for. Everyone.

Show a client your progress — no login needed.

Send a link that shows a project's status, or print a one-page status report.

What it is. A project manager can create a private link that shows a project's health, milestones and tasks without exposing what anyone is paid. There's also a printable status report you can save as a PDF for a board update or a client email.

Why it matters. Clients want to know how it's going without learning a new tool. A link and a report do that, and the link can be turned off at any time.

Who it’s for. Project managers, freelancers and anyone reporting to a client or a boss.