The Work Items box in the administration area bundles the central configuration of the work item management. It contains four submenu items:
Settings — system-wide visibility rule for project work items
Status — list of status columns for the kanban board and the work item lists
Priorities — list of priorities that appear in the priority dropdowns of work items
Additional attributes — individually definable extra fields for work items
The day-to-day usage of work items from an employee perspective is described in the article Work Items.
Note: The Work Items box is a standard function in ZEP Compact and ZEP Professional. In ZEP Clock, it is not available. Maintenance requires the administrator role.
Settings
Under Settings, you define a system-wide visibility rule for project work items. The configuration currently contains exactly one option that controls visibility behaviour towards non-administrators:
Enabled: All employees of a project see all project work items within that project — including work items they are not personally assigned to. Useful when your team works transparently on shared backlogs.
Disabled (default): Non-administrators see only the work items they are personally assigned to or that have been allocated to them.
Administrators see all project work items regardless of this setting.
Status
Under Status, you maintain the list of work item statuses. Each status appears as a column on the kanban board and as a filter option in the work item lists. Per status, you maintain the following fields:
Short form
Unique short technical identifier of the status — set once when the status is created and not changeable afterwards.
Maximum 32 characters.
Disallowed characters: spaces, <, >, #, $, %, &, ?, @, =, hyphen, double hyphen, backslash, semicolon, single and double quote.
Useful as a stable reference for interfaces and reports.
Description
The user-visible label of the status, maintainable multilingually in all ZEP languages.
Maximum 85 characters per language.
At least one language must be filled.
ZEP automatically picks the translation matching the language setting of the logged-in user.
Color
Visual color of the status for the kanban board and the work item lists. ZEP offers a fixed color palette. The color helps employees recognise the status of a work item at a glance — particularly useful in the board view with many parallel columns.
Visibility on the Board
Controls whether the status appears as its own column on the standard kanban board.
When visibility is disabled, the sort order is reset automatically.
The status remains available for work items even when its board visibility is disabled and can still appear in list views.
Default: enabled.
Sorting
Numeric order of the status columns on the kanban board (1 to 1000).
When a new status is created, the next free value is suggested automatically.
If a column is made invisible, the sort order is recalculated automatically so that no gaps remain.
Only required when visibility on the board is enabled.
Default status
The default status is assigned automatically to newly created work items.
You manage it via the page Status for new work items.
Exactly one status is marked as default at any time; when you switch the default, all other statuses are unmarked automatically.
The selection is only possible once at least two statuses exist.
Deletion of a status
A status can only be deleted when at least one other status exists.
All work items that use the deleted status are automatically reassigned to the default status.
If the deleted status was itself the default, the next status takes over that role.
Before the deletion, a confirmation appears showing the reassignment.
Priorities
Under Priorities, you maintain the list of work item priorities that appear in the priority dropdowns of work items. The fields largely match those for statuses, except for color, which is not maintained for priorities.
Short form of the priority
Unique short technical identifier of the priority — set once when the priority is created and not changeable afterwards.
Maximum 32 characters.
The same character restrictions apply as for the status short form: no spaces and none of the listed special characters.
Examples of common conventions: LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, URGENT.
Description of the priority
The user-visible label of the priority, maintainable multilingually in all ZEP languages.
Maximum 85 characters per language; at least one language is required.
ZEP picks the translation matching the language setting of the logged-in user.
Typical examples from practice: "Low", "Medium", "High", "Urgent".
Sorting of the priority
Numeric order of the priorities in dropdowns and lists (1 to 1000).
When a new priority is created, the next free value is suggested automatically.
The sort order determines in which order employees see the priorities when creating a work item.
Default priority
The default priority is assigned automatically to new work items.
You manage it via the page Priority for new work items.
Exactly one priority is marked as default at any time.
The selection is only possible once at least two priorities exist.
Deletion of a priority
A priority can only be deleted when at least one other priority exists.
All work items that use the deleted priority are automatically reassigned to the default priority.
If the deleted priority was itself the default, the next priority takes over that role.
ZEP shows a confirmation dialog with a hint about the pending reassignment before the deletion.
Additional attributes
Under Additional attributes, you define individual fields for work items. A work item additional attribute is an extra input field that appears when editing a work item and can be maintained there — suitable for classifications that ZEP does not provide by default (for example effort estimate, external ticket number, or cost center).
Fields when creating an additional attribute
Via the button Create new attribute, a dialog opens with the following fields:
Name technical key (mandatory, maximum 32 characters); the same character restrictions apply as for the status short form. When editing, the name can no longer be changed
Status selection Active or Inactive — controls whether the attribute is offered for input on work items without having to delete it
Description descriptive label shown as the field name on the work item; maintainable multilingually in all ZEP languages
Type determines what kind of value can be entered; when editing, the type can no longer be changed. Depending on the type, additional fields appear such as Max. value (for Number) or Placeholder (for Email)
Comment optional internal note (maximum 255 characters)
Available data types
For Type, you choose from the following data types:
Text single-line free-text field
Text area multi-line free-text field
Yes/No simple yes/no field
Number integer field (optionally with a max. value)
Percent percentage value
Decimal number number with decimal places
Date date picker for deadlines or key dates
Email email address (optionally with a placeholder)
URL web address
Deleting a custom attribute
When a custom attribute is deleted, not only the definition but also all values that have already been maintained for this attribute in existing work items are irreversibly removed. Before deletion, ZEP shows a confirmation dialog with a hint that the action cannot be undone.
If you would like to temporarily hide an attribute without losing existing values, use the edit dialog to set the status to Inactive instead — the attribute is then no longer offered for new work items, but existing values remain.