Currently, it is not possible to visually show the progress of a task based on the completion of subtasks, neither numerically (a percentage) or visually (a battery bar). Hoping this will become a feature in Asana but until then here is a workaround that addresses both!
Before you read further, there is a caveat to this workaround, as it will only work for predefined subtasks, either within a task template or a rule action âCreate subtasksâ. This workaround will NOT work for any subtasks that you progressively add to a task, as I explain at the end of this post. Additionally, this workaround requires Formula fields which are available in the Advanced and Enterprise tiers.
Create a single-select custom field called Progress as per below (using these emojis ) or feel free to import such fields from my Custom Field Templates from my website (look for the Progress Bars collection) and add it to your project.
Create a number field (with no decimals) called Subtasks and add it to your project.
Create a number field (with no decimals) called Complete and add it to your project.
Create a custom rule as per below that will add a 1 value whether the task is complete or incomplete: Note the last action to clear the Complete value.
PS: At this point, please note @ThaĂŻssa_iDO , useful contribution belowâŠ
Whether you setup a task template or a rule action as per below, make sure to add a number 1 value in the Subtasks field of each subtask. For rules, click on the iconâŠ
Now for the magic! Whenever you use either a Task Template or the custom rule, all your subtasks will have the number 1 populated in the Subtasks field, like this:
To elaborate on the reason why this workaround will NOT work for any subtasks that you progressively add to a task, is because subtasks do not technically belong to a project and therefore we cannot use the âWhen tasks added to the projectâ trigger to simply add a 1 value to the Subtasks which would have been great. Perhaps this may in change in the future or someone can find a hack
Hi @Richard_Sather, I absolutely love this feature you have created! We would love to use this for our organisation but we use a non-US data centre. Would you know of something like this that is available for non-US data centres?
You would need a US data centre to simply just download the custom field in step 1 - but that shouldnât stop you from creating my workaround. Since you cannot download my custom field templates (because you are in a non-US data centre) instead, you could simply create the custom field yourself using the emojis that I mentioned above.
I have built the progress feature for my team and they absolutely love it, I have also found a work around to ensure any new tasks get assigned the âsubtaskâ custom field value of 1. However, I was wondering if you would know any way to bulk update existing tasks with this same value of 1 to ensure they are used in the formula field that runs the progress bar? At the moment when I use the advanced search option to search for any tasks not assigned the custom field value of 1, this also included sub tasks of sub tasks. This then causes issues with the progress bars as these sub-sub tasks are not involved in the rule where it assigns âcompletedâ with the value 1.
@Richard_Sather - Hi Richard this looks great and I was really looking forward to give it a go and seeing how I can make use of it⊠Then I ran into the âFormulaâ field⊠Unfortunately I am on Asasna Starter pack so canât do Formula fieldsâŠ
Oh well⊠Will just read with envy the use cases that people postâŠ
Notes that this rule has side effects below,
ă»subtasks of parent tasks is set by 1 when creating parent tasks.
â fortunately rollup() doesnât sum up a field value of parent tasks. so it doesnât matter on % Progress.
ă»tasks are fixed when you just click âadd taskâŠâ in a list view or a board view
Progress as per below (using these emojis 
Progress Bars collection) and add it to your project.
Subtasks and add it to your project.
Note the last action to clear the 
iconâŠ
To elaborate on the reason why this workaround will NOT work for any subtasks that you progressively add to a task, is because subtasks do not technically belong to a project and therefore we cannot use the âWhen tasks added to the projectâ trigger to simply add a 1 value to the 
See all of my top tips & tricks on my website .
subtasks to 1 for manually added subtasks.
