A practical guide to use AI to create your tasks in CWM
If you are a knowledge worker, a team lead planning the work or a team member executing it, and you have a goal to get your work onto a CWM Board without building everything from scratch by hand, let AI do the heavy lifting.
CWM now has three AI features that helps task creation. Each AI feature shines in a different situation, so we, the CWM product team, put together this guide to want to help you pick the right one for your needs.
Here's a quick summary for each of the CWM AI feature available for task creation in CWM:
CWM AI Import takes an external backlog you already have in an excel file, a PDF, even a photo of a table, and brings it into CWM as tasks or stories and columns, just as it was.
Generate from a prompt or file works the other way. Give it an idea or any document as input, and it creates a set of CWM tasks for you.
Generate from a CWM Doc sits inside your CWM Doc page and turns your page content into actionable CWM tasks on the spot. It let's user select a specific CWM Board where these tasks can be added on the fly without the need to switch from your CWM Doc to any other page.
Side by side comparison
| Dimension | CWM AI Import | Generate tasks or story from files or prompts | Generate tasks from a CWM Doc page |
| What it does ? | Faithfully moves existing structured backlog data in external files into CWM as native CWM tasks or stories | Infers and creates brand new CWM tasks or stories from context provided in prompt or uploaded files | Turns a CWM Doc page content into actionable CWM tasks and adds them to a CWM Board |
| Primary input | File containing structured tabular data | Open prompt and, or, any uploaded file or document | Content of any CWM Doc page |
| Output | CWM Tasks or Agile Stories | CWM Tasks or Agile Stories | CWM Tasks only |
| Entry point | CWM Board: Create with Otto button >> Import tasks | CWM Board: Create with Otto button >> Generate tasks | CWM Doc header: Create Tasks button |
| Mapping or generates | AI Maps source columns in uploaded file to existing CWM columns with an option for users to change the mapping | Generates new CWM Tasks or Agile Stories or new custom columns | Generates new CWM Tasks only |
| Faithfulness | Transfers exactly what is in the uploaded file | Creates new CWM Tasks or Agile Stories to review | Creates new CWM Tasks to review (refine or modify any tasks recommended) |
| Hierarchy | Not preserved, re-indent manually | No hierarchy from source | No hierarchy |
| Role required | cwm_ai_user or lens_user; Space Editor+ access level | cwm_ai_user | cwm_ai_user |
| Dependent apps to install | ServiceNow Otto for CWM | ServiceNow Otto for CWM | ServiceNow Otto for CWM |
| File types and size | xlsx, xls, doc, docx, PDF, png, jpg, jpeg; Size 10 MB; up to 100 rows, 50 cols; per import action |
Any document - doc, docx, pdf, xls, xlsx, png, jpg, jpeg, excel files; Size 50 MB; |
No file upload; uses existing CWM Doc content |
| User validation | Column Mapping step plus per Task preview with checkboxes to select/unselect tasks to import | Task generated preview step | Refine in Otto panel before Adding tasks to any CWM Board |
| Best for | Migrating a backlog, onboarding a team, consolidating structured data | Brainstorming a plan from scratch using the open prompt box, or uploading a plan document like Meeting note, Project charter document or a Requirement document etc. | Generating Tasks from existing meeting notes or plan documents in a CWM Doc page |
When to use which skill
Use CWM AI Import when the work already exists as a table.
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You are a new team moving to CWM from another work management tool, MS Project, Jira, Azure DevOps, Asana, Monday.com, or Smartsheet. Export or download your existing grid as an Excel file, then use Import to bring it in as tasks or stories.
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You are migrating a backlog that already lives in Excel export.
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You have a photo or PDF of a structured table, such as a printed task list or a clean whiteboard grid.
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You are consolidating work that is already organised in rows and columns.
- Check out the
Use Generate tasks or story from files or prompts when the work does not exist yet.
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You are starting from only an idea or a one line description, and you want AI to propose the breakdown.
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You have a source document, an epic requirement doc, a PRD, or a deck, and you want it scoped into tasks rather than copied row for row. Attach it as context.
Use Generate task from a CWM Doc when the source is already a CWM Doc.
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Your meeting notes, retro, or project brief live in a CWM Doc, and you want to turn them into actionable CWM tasks without leaving the page.
