Requesting product feature to automatically add project tag from a parent task to their subtasks. I view my projects collectively in the “My Tasks” function and it is cumbersome to manually add projects to subtasks. I often have repeated subtasks for various projects and I can’t tell which sub-tasks is for which project without tagging each subtask on my own.
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Welcome, @Megan_Brooks,
I’ve merged your post into an existing thread where you can click the title to scroll to the top and vote by clicking the purple Vote button.
Thanks,
Larry
This is the exact behavior I want.
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The fact that this isn’t even an option right now is deeply frustrating. This is how I expected Subtasks to work — but it most certainly is not. I find the reality of Asana’s subtasks exceedingly cumbersome and non-intuitive.
Jan’s description is clearly the intuitive default for a substantial portion of users. This should absolutely be an option, if not the universal default.
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If that’s true, why even give the ability to add a project (Tab + P)? BTW, in some other platforms steps to doing a task are often implemented using checklists.
Because a subtask of “Task 1” could be a “Design logo” step for example and would nicely sit in the “Weekly board” for the design team.
We use this exactly case in some of our workflows and get really nice value from it. We also have a few cases where we actually get value from having a subtask live on the same project as its parent, so I don’t agree with some of the other suggestions in this thread.
I feel like the end goal should be to have some kind of delineation (maybe a separate field?) between a task’s inherited projects (from parent) and projects (that it’s directly on). The fact that subtasks can currently be included in reporting based on parent task’s projects gives me hope that some kind of solution is not impossible in the future.
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fwiw - the lack of this capability, at least as an option or rule action, is a primary factor in my company moving off Asana. Too many times people couldn’t find their tasks (which were sub-tasks). Love being able to have a hierarchy to keep work organized, have different people work on pieces of an overall story, etc. But it’s terrible to not be able to see the sub-tasks on the project board or list without manually remembering to add each sub-task to the project.
However - I took one more shot at finding a way to automate this today, and figured out a way to do it. In case it helps anyone else, here’s what I did:
- Create a new blank project called “Convert Sub-Tasks to Tasks” or something like that.
- In that project, add a rule triggered by any task or sub-task being added to the project. The action should be to Add the task back to the project where you want sub-tasks automatically added to the project. You’ll have to decide which section to put the subtask into as well. You can also remove the task from this project to keep it clean (this becomes a pass-through project just used to be able to trigger a rule with an action that allows me to add the task back to the original project).
- In the project where I want this to happen, created a rule triggered by any task or sub-task being assigned. Of course, you could add more refined conditions if you don’t want this to a happen for every sub-task or task.
- In the action for that rule, add the task to the new project created above.
So far this seems to do what I want, so as soon as I assign a sub-task to someone, it will get added into a section of the project (by passing it through the pass-through project). enjoy…
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Interesting. It’s notable that your company left because of this problem.
Just today, I heard this very complaint from a new client I’m advising on Asana improvements. It’s one of the #1 complaints I’ve heard from my years using Asana with several companies.
I agree… Asana should be listening. People have been asking for this for YEARS, and I’d way rather have this than a flashy AI feature that I don’t trust or care about.
Love Asana, but… sad face … I truly wonder why they don’t implement this?
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The way Asana handles subtasks is a major flaw that adds a ridiculous burden to those who try to use subtasks. The result is I have dozens of subtasks listed in My Tasks under “No Project” and with no easy way to even add a column to see what the parent task / project is. How can this request be ignored for over 7 years?
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This seems to be a basic feature to have in a “project” management tool. While I can understand setups that would prefer the current behavior (mostly to keep certain view clean and understandable), I can’t understand why Asana won’t develop a set of account/project/task/view options to offer the user the possibility to switch between modes.
Just a “view subtasks” checkbox would solve most of “crowded” views problems or a “inherit project” option could make this work keeping everything else the same…
I’m actually interested in what is the counter argument to keep the subtask matter on hang, I’ve read almost all the debate in this thread and found quite some replies about “embracing the current subtask ethos” but failed to understand what that would mean.
It means considering subtasks as “simple steps of the parent task” or multi-home them elsewhere so they can be proper tasks themselves. It might also mean considering only what you see as the first level in list view is the actual work happening, anything in subtasks is there to help but doesn’t “count”.
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Thanks Tony
Am I missing something **—**A subtask doesn’t by default inherit project or other custom fields from the parent task.?
Re:
The solution that makes the most sense to me would be:
- Subtasks inherit project(s) from parent tasks (totally agree)
- Subtasks that live in the same project as the parent task should not be visible, at least not by default. (I don’t understand the issue of having them viewable in My tasks (via toggle) - can you explain further why this is an issue please?)
I’m not talking about my tasks. Both tasks and subtasks show up in My Tasks when they are assigned to you, and I think that current behaviour is fine.
Subtasks that are in the same project as the parent task show up twice. The task is already part of a task that is in the project. Seeing a subtask on two levels (both as a task AND a subtask in the same project) makes no sense to me, and will likely confuse.
For example:
Why is this task in here twice?
and/or
I already saw the task here in the project, so I deleted the subtask, and now my task is also gone.
See for yourself when you add a subtask to the project the parent task is in using tab + p
It should when the subtask is actually in the project.
By default subtasks don’t have a project, they only have a parent task, unless you add them to the project.
That is the purpose of this feedback, to make it so that subtasks are seen as part of the project their parent task is in, without having to manually add each subtask. Preferably without having them show up twice (once as a task, once as a subtask).
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Thanks Jan-Rienk
And if we need the subtask to have a project(and other fields) from the parent task in my task view—is their away to create rule so subtasks inherit field of the parent task?
Thanks Daryl
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@Daryl_James That would require rules to be able to act on variables like task.parent.project, which to my knowledge isn’t currently possible.
This would open up more possibilities for automation and enable us to create a good workaround for the requested feature here not being implemented yet.
Perhaps @Phil_Seeman can tell us if this is possible in flowsana?
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Thanks, @Jan-Rienk - yes, it’s absolutely possible in Flowsana! In fact, I jsut made a new KB article about it, here: Can I update subtasks based on data in their parent task? (flowsana.net)
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