🔋 Automated task progress battery bars to show progress of subtasks

[Richard_Sather]

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 ‘Create subtasks’. 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.

1. 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.
   

   

2. Create a number field (with no decimals) called Subtasks and add it to your project.

3. Create a number field (with no decimals) called Complete and add it to your project.

4. Create a custom rule as per below that will add a 1 value when any subtask is created.
   Note the When triggers are ‘Task is assigned’ and ‘Assignee is empty’ and the other is ‘Task is assigned’ and ‘Assignee is not empty’. And make sure to have ‘Run on subtasks’ enabled.
   

   
   
   Kudos to @Tetsuo_Kawakami for this amazing hack!

5. Create a custom rule as per below that will add a 1 value to Complete when the task is complete, or clear it if it ever becomes incomplete. Plus the fail safes to set 1 to Subtasks in case anyone clears the 1 value accidentally (this can be prevented on Enterprise plans, see step 10 below).
   Note the last action to clear the Complete value.
   

   

6. Create a formula field called % Progress as per below, using the Rollup function:
   

   

7. Create a custom rule as per below using the new number comparison conditions in rules
   I hope you enjoy building this baby as much as I did
   

   
   
   PS: Thanks to @Thaïssa_iDO’s idea for adding the ‘Complete task’ action in the last branch!

8. Now for the magic! Whenever you add a subtask, they will have the number 1 populated in the Subtasks field, like this:
   

   
   
   
   And whenever you complete subtasks, the rule will add a 1 value to the Complete field, like this:
   
   
   
   
   The formula field will populate the % Progress field which in turn will trigger the rule to adjust the Progress field

9. Finally, hide the Subtasks and the Complete fields and click the ‘Save view’ button on the far right, so your project looks cleaner like this:
   

   
   
   If you are on Enterprise tiers, follow the next steps:

10. For those on Enterprise tiers, I recommend you add a restriction to the Subtasks, Complete and Progress fields so that only Project Admins can edit them, making sure no one else accidentally tampers with this system!
    

    

11. For those on Enterprise tiers, you can add/apply this entire system to any other projects by adding all the above into a Bundle!
    

    

You may also want to have a look at Automated task status based on completion of subtasks

See all of my top tips & tricks on my website .

[Arthur_BEGOU]

Super clever workaround for a highly requested feature
Well done @Richard_Sather

[Larry_Berger_lpb]

Great workaround, @Richard_Sather!

One thing: In #6, your rule’s “If” says Progress is less than 39 where I believe is should say Progress is less than 40, right?

Thanks,

Larry

[Richard_Sather]

Ah, thanks for the quality check, @Larry_Berger_lpb! Good catch
I’ve replaced the screenshot in step 6

[Bastien_Siebman]

Super clever indeed, hopefully we won’t have to do those super smart and equally awkward workarounds for long!

[Rashad_Issa]

Very clever!!

[Quirine_Jager]

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?

[Richard_Sather]

Hi @Quirine_Jager , thanks, glad you like it!

You would need a US data centre to simply just download the custom field in step 1 - but that shouldn’t 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.

[Quirine_Jager]

Hi @Richard_Sather ,

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 ‘subtask’ 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 ‘completed’ with the value 1.

[Richard_Sather]

Hi @Quirine_Jager , glad to hear your team loves it.

I think you could expand all tasks and multi-select all subtasks and type a 1 in the value. Wouldn’t that work?

@Quirine_Jager

I have also found a work around to ensure any new tasks get assigned the ‘subtask’ custom field value of 1.

Care to share your workaround?

[Bastien_Siebman]

@Richard_Sather I used your trick last week, it is amazing! thanks

[Richard_Sather]

Niiice, @Bastien_Siebman

[Jason_Woods]

@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 “Formula” field… Unfortunately I am on Asasna Starter pack so can’t do Formula fields…

Oh well… Will just read with envy the use cases that people post…

But looks like an awesome feature…

Jason…

[Richard_Sather]

Thanks @Jason_Woods and sorry about that!
I’ve added a note in the post that this workaround requires Advanced and above!

[Thaïssa_iDO]

Hi Richard,

I think I’ve found a workaround for subtasks that are progressively added to a task.

Follow the process until step 6, then:

7. Create a manual rule. Make sure to add a number 1 value in the Subtasks field of the subtask
   

   
   
   
   

8. When you need to add a subtask to a task, run the manual rule instead of adding a subtask
   

   

The Progress field will adjust depending on how many subtasks you will add and complete

[Thaïssa_iDO]

A little add-on:
Add “Complete task” as an action when your % Progress reaches 100% to automatically complete the parent task.

[Larry_Berger_lpb]

Wow, two great additions, @Thaïssa_iDO!

Larry

[Richard_Sather]

Great additions indeed, @Thaïssa_iDO

[Tetsuo_Kawakami]

I came up with the following rule to set subtasks to 1 for manually added subtasks.

Notes that this rule has side effects below,
・subtasks of parent tasks is set by 1 when creating parent tasks.
→ fortunately rollup() doesn’t sum up a field value of parent tasks. so it doesn’t matter on % Progress.
・tasks are fixed when you just click “add task…” in a list view or a board view

[Richard_Sather]

Awesome, @Tetsuo_Kawakami !
I’ll test it ASAP and add it to the OP