Asana Tasks And Subtasks : What's The Difference ?

Today, let’s talk about subtasks ! :heart_eyes:

There is a big debate about “How the way subtasks should work in Asana”, especially if you’re coming over from other Tasks Management Platform like Microsoft Project or Planner !

In Asana, they work differently and you have to understand their functionalities and limitations to make sure you’re setting them up to work for you :white_check_mark:

Let’s dive in, see you in the video :diving_mask:

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Awesome video @Kelsea_Lopez :heart_eyes:

A nice intro for the beginner and a lot of detail for the more advanced player!

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Very helfpul info! But oh my gosh, those Blair Witch style jumps made ME jump! lol

One important feature that we are missing is the % of completedness of the main task when completing the subtaks. There is no simple way to know if its at 20% or at 95%.

Very important for project management with teams

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There is a little discussion of this topic here: Is it possible to see what percent of the task was completed if it has many subtasks nested inside? But there’s no Product Feedback request for it that I could see, so you might want to add one.

EDIT: Never mind, there is a Product Feedback you can vote for:

Until automated updates to % completeness is launched, I’ve found using a custom field to track progress extremely helpful. Yes, it requires manual updates, but it’s better than nothing. We love the visuality of a progress bar (a la Showing progress visually in a Custom Field), but you can use whatever field type works for you.

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When Asana was younger, there used to be no difference between sections, tasks & subtasks - they were all just (bigger or smaller) tasks. I liked that a LOT better because it meant you could nest any task within any other and promote or demote their importance as a project progressed. I thought locking down their definitions was a step backward.

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Why do you speak so quickly when training? It’s much harder to learn when you are speaking so quickly as if you are trying to get too much into a video.

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I believe our video was speed up on purpose, right @Kelsea_Lopez ?
You can slow it down in YouTube settings for the video I believe

@Mindy_Schleger
Indeed, 0.75 does the job, and makes it “normal” pace :grin:

I find parent and subtasks helpful when it is about templating and SOPs. So recurring steps someone has to take (like the invoice example in the video), or elements to think of (e.g. when it comes to product launches, many of the marcom tools to use).

What I find difficult though is to expect someone to work on unassigned tasks, in this case subtasks of a parent task which has been assigned. My understanding is that If the subtask is not assigned, it won’t pop-up in their inbox notifications, and only be visible in their “My tasks” if they extend the parent task view. With the multitude of tasks that are typically in an Asana instance, I do find it hard to not overlook these if not assigned.

So sorry everyone, yes - I probably hear myself so often, that I’m bored with my voice, and I thought I was speaking too slow :upside_down_face: I can confirm that my team does not allow me to speed up videos any more!!

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How do you have the numbers to the left of the tasks and subtasks?

Click your user avatar in the upper right corner, then:

Settings > Display > Advanced options > Show row numbers

Thanks Phil! Learn something new every day!

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