Currently, when I delete a parent task, the subtask survive. This results in there being a lot of “orphaned” subtasks with no parent task. We would like the option to delete all the subtask at the same time as deleting the parent task.
I wonder if there is some misunderstanding, as I do not believe that the behavior you describe is standard. When I delete a task that has (non-project-homed) subtasks, all the subtasks are deleted at the same time.
Maybe this will help: Delete task - subtasks don't get deleted
Hi, it’s probably because your task is in one project only. We use projects to have personal and team folders. Therefore, all our tasks and subtasks are une more than one project. And that situation makes subtasks orphans or ghosts as we call them in our company. I think having a pop up asking if we want to delete the subtasks associated would be a simple and best solution.
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To clarify: This happens whenever the subtasks are multihomed. So for example, if a parent task has a subtask called “Design” and that subtask is multihomed in our “Design Queue” project, the Design subtask survives even when the parent task is deleted, leaving us with many orphans task.
I see. Well, the behavior during task deletion we are seeing appears to be intentional and I can see that it is mostly, probably the better design choice for many or most users. After all, the homing of subtasks in a different project may often mean that those subtasks have value or relevance other than that which they derive from their parent task. I understand that this is NOT the way you’re using subtasks.
When its parent task is deleted, the orphaned subtask gets promoted to be a task in the Project where it continues to reside due to multi-homing. (However, as shown below, the promoted Subtasks still shows up as a Subtask in Search.) There, in your case, it becomes indistinguishable (AFAICT) from any other Design Queue Tasks that were never subtasks and never multi-homed…except for one surprising twist:
Although the native Subtask (i.e. child of a Task in Design Queue but NOT itself homed to Design Queue) is NOT part of the project according to Asana logic, it DOES show up for a search for “Subtasks in Design Queue”. So you can do this search:
Updated image to be more explicit.
The native, non-multi-homed Design Queue Subtasks are distinguishable. Wow. This is helpful as long as Asana never changes this behavior. They might as it seems rather illogical…
Anyhow, this is a pretty complex issue which clearly underlines the need for a simple orphan prevention or detection method. Anything that needs correcting above, I’d appreciate the help of other users. Good luck!
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Impressive work, Holmes…I mean @anon91170507, and clearly conveyed!!
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Removing a task doesn’t remove any subtask… even if we confirm we want to delete the take permanently and the alert message says it will remove them..it doesn’t which is a big problem cause it creates many many orphaned subtasks. Have you heard of this issue? To give you a bit more context, all the tasks and subtasks are added in different projects (we use one project per team member to replace my tasks)
I think the key part of your post is:
subtasks are added in different projects
If you permanently delete a task with subtasks, I just tested and you’re right that any subtasks that are attached to a project will not get deleted. I suspect that’s “as designed” and not a bug, because technically those subtasks are top-level tasks in the project where they’re attached. I agree it’s an odd scenario.
@Marie what do you think? As designed? Possible bug?
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Thanks for your answer @Phil_Seeman . @Marie I would assume 99% of people using subtasks intend to have it linked to the parent task no matter what happens. Why people would create subtasks otherwise, they would just use normal tasks.
Overall I think when a task or a subtask is “DELETED” that should be everywhere, there is no reason for it stays in other projects. But when using the function “REMOVING” from a project then it makes sense they stay in others.
Honestly, if this is intentional, then it completely lacks logic.
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Would be great to have an update/guidance on this issue @Marie please
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Apologies for missing this thread last week. @Phil_Seeman is correct here!
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This is bad. I wish there was a prompt that asks if we want to delete subtasks too because as a user, that is what everyone assumed would happen and now we have a lot of frustrated people with orphan tasks all over the place. How do we put in a feature request?
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Start a new topic in the English Forum > Product Feedback forum section with this request.
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There may be an update to this by now, but I do see the benefit of subtasks that are attached to an active project NOT getting deleted when the parent task is deleted. What if the subtasks aren’t specifically assigned to any project? Do they get deleted with the parent tasks? I’m hoping yes because I want to avoid floating tasks. I have the same question when it comes to deleting full projects. Thanks!
Welcome, @Leona_Abrahao2,
I’ve merged your post into an existing topic where you can click the title to scroll to the top and vote by clicking the Vote button.
See the other posts here for more, or just do a quick test with test tasks/projects to be sure of the results. Note that if a task in a project, or a subtask in a task, has a project membership, it’s not deleted. For tasks in a project, if the task has an assignee, it’s also not deteled when you delete the project. I’m not positive about subtasks with an assignee (and no project membership) whether they’re preserved similarly.
Thanks,
Larry