does anyone find it necessary to use custom fields on subtasks? We currently develop our projects to be main task page and subtasks. We avoid developing further subtasks. Using custom fields (especially numerical fields) seem to be important for us in subtasks as we track time and cost. Does anyone have the same need? or are there other ideas?
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We havenât gotten custom fields yet in our Asana :(, but we would definitely want it on subtasks. We try not to create too many projects so a lot of our internal engagements (projects) are actually Asana tasks. The Asana project we usually call the pipeline (example: Sales Pipeline). So we tend to do what Asana expects to be done at the task level in subtasks. We do try to go down only 1 level though.
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Great news! Custom fields are coming to all customers on Thursday (keep an eye out for announcements).
Today, custom fields are only defined project by project, so you would need to add the subtask to the project you want it to inherit fields from.
@RashadIssa Iâve been adding all costing tasks and subtasks into a central Time Tracking project for myself, and that gives them the Time fields (allocated and actual). Itâs not an ideal solution, but itâs working right now for tracking time across my projects (without adding it to each project) and also for tasks/subtasks.
The other option would be to up-level subtasks to become tasks in the project- is this a possibility?
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I like this idea, it would be nice to have the option to further sort and categories subtasks with custom fields 
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Yes, I can certainly house them in different projects to enable the custom fields. That would be the best solution for the time being. Moving them from subtasks to tasks would not work with the work flow that we have currently. If (or hopefully when) they get launched for subtasks, this will enhance the way we track and report on different progress items within subtasks too!
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We desperately need subtasks to have custom fields. It is not feasible to have subtasks elevated to tasks and then elevate tasks to projects. Especially whilst dependencies are such painful process.
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@Sean_Sullivan thanks for this feedback. What kind of workaround do you use to solve for this now? And what is your main goal in adding custom fields to subtasks / in what circumstances do you see this being most useful?
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@Alexis Thanks for responding so quickly. The workaround is a PM, a call, or a scream if it is missed.
One Custom Field we use is Priority. If we were to elevate sub task to tasks and tasks to projects we would have over 1000 projects to filter through.
As dependencies as so unwieldy and convoluted to assign we canât rely on them either. This process needs to be Leaned up.
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Thanks for adding that detail, Sean! This will be helpful for our team to know as we find ways to approach the issue.
So, it sounds like you donât really have a workaround for adding priority to subtasks right now? I suggest you try naming conventions, so at the beginning or end of a subtask you use the abbreviation P0 / P1 / P2. Do you think that could help you?
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I had a client who needed custom fields on subtasks and we did the following:
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Create a new project called "Custom Fields [not in use]
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Add the desired custom field to this project.
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When a subtask is created, use the âAdd to projectâ option in the ⌠menu to add the subtask to this project.
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Now the subtasks inherit the custom field from this project.
Itâs not ideal, but getâs the job done.
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Our customers are thousands of Asana teams that use our Gmail/Outlook to Asana app on Asanaâs apps page Asana Apps and Integrations ⢠Asana. Having worked with many Asana teams, we see a common use case for why custom fields are needed on subtasks. And, we ourselves use Asana for managing customer service and product requirements for our releases.
Product Release Management
- Our Asana Product team is organized into projects like Bugs, Features, Integrations, etc.
- Letâs say thereâs a feature such as âReply in Asana to respond to an emailâ (we do that
) - The custom fields is Stage = In Progress, Completed, Tested, Failed Test, etc, or Priority.
- A subtask may be âAutomatically cc all team members when I reply to a clientâ
- We have a different priority for each subtask.
- So now, we have to use a workaround to tag these subtasks with labels like âP1â, âP2â.
- And so, our starred advanced searches donât show âAll tasks and sub-tasks with a priorityâŚâ
Customer Service:
- Many of our Asana customers create a team called âCustomer Serviceâ, and then have projects like âPaid Customersâ, âProspectsâ, âInactive Customersâ. In each of these projects, each task belongs to a customer. And they tag (rather, our Gmail/Outlook integration automatically tags) each task with the customer name, ex. âOcean Cycleryâ. Then, within that task, they use sub-tasks for a variety of reasons, and they want to see the same custom-fields as the parent task, mostly to do with prioritizing one request over the other.
There are, of course, workarounds. And the Asana team has to balance many competing requirements. So whenever they get to this, it will be helpful. Personally, it is the kind of feature that product teams really need most, so itâs a P2 for us.
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Yes definitely on subtasks and also on My personal tasks. Iâd like to add custom fields to my personal view.
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@paulminors we are using this now as well, not ideal as you say, many more steps to complete.
It is working OK, but with any work around there is a chance for process failure with additional steps. Training lower level staff has been a challenge.
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I have a service organisation and we do need to use custom fields in subtasks. I am desperately looking for a solution or a workaround that doesnât involve creating 1000 other tasks or projects⌠looking forward to an ideal solution.
It just makes logically sense that a taks leads to another subtaks and that subtask needs to have the option to have customized fields as well, because it is just another task that we call a subtask.
May be there can be a feature of âprioritizingâ task. Where the head task is ranked as 1 and the following subtask is ranked as 1.1 (so there is a link). And what about as subtask requiring a new subtask? Than this would be 1.1.1âŚ
So my best guess is, that the system of tasks and subtask might just be seen from a different angle, with prioritizing them, but handling them as normal tasksâŚ
I hope my input might help to give a good angle for Asana developers⌠If this problem would be solved, my world would be completely different
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I like the idea of having the subtasks numbered too. This will be a good indication for sequential activities.
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We arenât able to release a specific roadmap with timelines, but we are discussing the idea and prioritizing it among other feature requests.
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This is an absolute must-have. I struggle to understand why this would be difficult or time-consuming to implement, given how independent from each other tasks and subtasks in Asana are.
@Alexis - any updates as to whether the feature is on the roadmap?
Also, probably worth combining (and summing up the votes) with this (identical) request: Custom Fields in subtasks
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Are custom fields available for subtasks? I canât seem to get that to work. Thanks!
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Here is your answer
If youâd like to add custom fields to a subtask, the subtask must first be manually added to a project.
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