Picking assignees
Assignees on the Task Details form takes any number of people. A task can be shared between several crew members, and it can be created with nobody on it — although it cannot be completed that way.
The list offers the crew assigned to this yacht. Anyone who is not on the yacht is rejected when the task is saved, so you cannot hand work to someone who is not aboard.
Assigned Ranks and Department
Alongside the people, a task can carry Assigned Ranks and a Department. Both lists come from what is set up for this yacht under Vessel Settings → Crew (on the Ranks and Departments tabs) — Assigned Ranks offers Captain plus the yacht's ranks, and Department offers None plus the yacht's departments.
A rank or department on a task is a label, not an assignment. Crew who hold that rank or belong to that department are not added as assignees, are not notified, and do not count towards the assignee needed to close the task. What the labels give you is a way to organise and find work by role or team: the task tables show Ranks and Department columns, and the Filter panel has Rank and Department columns, so you can see everything marked for, say, the engineers or the deck department, whoever currently holds the job.
Company management users
By default only the yacht's own crew are assignable. A yacht can opt in to more: on the Vessel Settings page, the Tasks tab carries a single switch, Allow company management users to be assigned to tasks. Switch it on and company management users appear in the assignee pickers as well — on the task form, on the completion dialog and in the Assignee filter.
Changing the switch needs permission to edit vessel settings. The Tasks tab itself is only listed when the yacht has the Tasks or the Maintenance module, and it is hidden altogether on a yacht run from the on-board Nauticare app, where the setting could not take effect.
Notifications
Adding someone to a task notifies them — the notice names who assigned the task and which task it is, and carries an Open task link into the Tasks section. Removing someone from a task sends the matching unassignment notice. Both fire when the task is created and whenever it is edited and saved, so the people who joined or left a task hear about it — and only they do; the rest of the crew is not notified. Changing the people in the Task completed by field while closing a task does not send these notices.
Each person controls how those reach them. On Account → Notifications, the General Tasks group lists Task assigned and Task unassigned, each with an Email, a Mobile and an In-App switch.
The notifications are also permission-aware: only people who may view general tasks receive them.
Seeing what is on your plate
Open tasks assigned to you are counted on the Notifications and Alerts page under General Tasks, split into Open Tasks and Overdue Tasks. Open Tasks includes the overdue ones. Clicking either opens the Tasks section already filtered to you. The dashboard alerts widget shows the same two counts for the whole yacht rather than just your own tasks.