We’re making great use of the new “Status” functionality. Previously, we’d been using a custom field for the same thing, but this new feature makes it easier to track tasks. We use a lot of reporting on our dashboard for task Status and it’s great. It allows me to quickly see what my “Focus” and “In Progress” tasks are, so I know what to work on.
However, subtasks don’t inherit the Status of their parent tasks. For example, I make a Marketing Task. Its status defaults to “Not Started” and there are a number of other Status options. However, when I add a subtask, it doesn’t have this functionality. It simply has the default Complete/Incomplete toggle. Therefore, the subtask doesn’t appear on any reports or in my custom project tabs. This is especially frustrating when a task is assigned to someone else, and I’m assigned a subtask within that task.
The only way I’ve found to force the system to add the Status feature to a subtask is to add it into the task template’s project (I’m honestly not sure why this step is necessary, since the subtask should in theory already be within that project), and then convert the subtask into a Marketing Task. When working with a high volume of subtasks, 2 steps is a lot.
The most recent frustration lies in making additional task templates that automatically include subtasks. Once again, the parent task has the Status options included, but none of the subtasks do, effectively rendering them invisible to our reporting unless we go through and manually convert each and every one.
If I’m missing some setting or function that fixes this, I’d be glad to hear it. Otherwise, I would love there to be an option to allow subtasks to automatically inherit the Status options of their parent tasks, preferably on the task template level.
Hi @Gavin_Wadsworth
I use the custom task feature, and I have a rule that every time a new task is added to the project, it makes it a custom task. You can ask the rule to apply to task and subtask.
Hopefully, this solves your issue.
@Rashad_Issa That rule action will set a status of an existing custom task type but it won’t alter the task type of a task. Are you sure you don’t have your custom type “Work Intake” set as the default type for the project?
Thanks for responding! Unfortunately, this fix doesn’t seem to be working for me at all. I’ve configured the rule exactly as you indicated: When: Task is added to this project → Do this: Set Marketing Task to Not Started. And the rule is set to run for both tasks and subtasks. For whatever reason, the rule refuses to run under any circumstances I’ve tried. I’ve tried adding a template task that includes subtasks, I’ve tried manually adding a subtask to a task, I’ve tried creating a normal Task within the project, and I’ve tried creating a task elsewhere and then adding it to the project. The rule won’t convert a Task into a Marketing Task.
I believe I’m having this exact issue with the suggested rule. It won’t change a normal Task into my custom Marketing Task template.
@Gavin_Wadsworth See my reply to @Rashad_Issa jut above - you are correct, that rule won’t work to change a task type, only a status.
At present, Asana does not provide the ability to change a custom type in a rule. We do have that capability in our Flowsana rule actions; that’s the only way to accomplish it at present that I know of.
This is because custom types are strictly defined for a project, and subtasks by default do not belong to their parent task’s project (Why not? That’s a whole other topic discussed quite a bit in the forum…)
FYI our Flowsana rule action to set a custom task type works for subtasks as well as tasks. 
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Thanks for the in-depth reply! I don’t know anything about Flowsana. Where do you recommend I get started? Is there an additional cost?
I recommend our documentation here:
Flowsana Help Center
Introduction to Flowsana
Rule Workflows
For specific questions and assistance, contact our support.
Yes, we are an independent integration; info about pricing is here:
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