Challenges in grouping in a project pipeline

[Bobby_Goldstein]

Stumbled on this and I feel like this gets me so close to what I want to do?

I’m using: user fills out form → form creates task → rule turns task into project based on template

Based on the user’s answer to a couple questions in the form, I have rules to add some tasks to the resulting project. The only way I know how to do this is via subtasks:

• User answers question
• Question answer changes custom field value
• Based on custom field value, I have a rule create subtasks in the task-created-by-the-form
• When the next rule converts that form to a project, those subtasks are elevated to tasks in the new project

But those created tasks are in the untitled section in the beginning, rather than the sections they properly belong in

I’m trying to create some kind of rule that will put them into the correct sections, and I can’t figure out how to get that rule to run on project creation

• Your solution as-is doesn’t work because running the rule in the “other project” can’t change the section in the original project
• Instead, I tried having the rule in the “other project” rename the task, and then setting a rule in the project template to run when a rule name changes
  • The rule change in the “other” project works
  • But the rule in the created-from-template project never fires, I’m guessing because the renaming happens so fast, the rule triggers haven’t started watching?

Wondering if you have any suggestions?

[Jan-Rienk]

Hey @Bobby_Goldstein ,

I think the solution you’re looking for isn’t in Sections, nor in pre-multi-homing, but in Custom fields.

The reasons are this:

• Although you can add a section to a task (Subtask Sections (aka Subsections) - The Hidden Story) it will not merge with sections in your template, assuming it has them.
• You can group by custom fields project templates (Saved Views in Project Templates is here!)
• When you use a Custom library field, the value you give to a subtask will be carried over to the value it will have in the template, and thus grouped accordingly. You can set the custom field value in the rule that adds the subtask, under “show more” in the detail pane when you edit the subtask.

The only downsides are that:

• Saved views don’t show until you actually use the template
• Grouping doensn’t maintain manual sorting

If you want to force the sorting, you can utilise a number field for that. Also add that field to both the the pipeline project and the template.

If you still have trouble making this work let me know, and I’ll DM you a calendly link for troubleshooting.

[Richard_Sather]

@Jan-Rienk

• it will not merge with sections in your template, assuming it has them.

@Jan-Rienk , are you sure? Is this what you mean?

Subtask sections convert to Sections when task is converted to project

This is something I discovered a few months ago and have meaning to share…! Some of you may already know about the mystical subtask sections (aka subsections) that can be added to your list of subtasks to organize them into sections, as per below… [image] …but what you may not know is that, once you convert such a task (with subsections and subtasks) into a project, as per below… [image] …then, in the newly created project, your subtasks will be upgraded to tasks, while the subsections wi…

[Jan-Rienk]

@Richard_Sather I was fairly sure… I expected it to work like this:

• Task has Section A
• Template has Section A
• Convert Task into Project using Template: I expected section A to appear twice.

Your question had me testing though, and this is what actually happened:

Task:

Template:

Project created form Task using Template:

So if the objective is just to put the tasks into the sections it might work.

I still like the flexibility/searchability that results from using a custom field though. And you’d still have to utilise a custom number field and saved sort to force the task order.

That’s a good start of the day, learning something new!

[Bobby_Goldstein]

Thanks for replying, and this sounds helpful, but I almost feel like we’re getting asymptotic

So I’m reading what you’re saying as:

• I can create subsections to my tasks
• When those tasks are converted to a project (including by rule), those subsections get elevated to sections the same way that the tasks get converted to projects
• And if those subsections have the same names as sections in the project templates, the two sections will merge

Which is… exactly what I want

Except, I don’t want to touch the tasks

• The tasks to which I’m adding subtasks are generated by users filling out a form
• Form creates task → project rule may create subtasks depending on custom field values → different project rule converts task to project using template
• So I think I would need to create the subsections by rule
  • Is there a way to do that?
  • I don’t see one, but I could easily be missing it

[Jan-Rienk]

@Bobby_Goldstein And that’s another reason I suggested using Custom fields instead of Sections. No blockers there that I can see.

[Bobby_Goldstein]

Ah, I see what you’re saying… now

[Richard_Sather]

Yes, @Bobby_Goldstein you can create subtasks in the rule action to create subtasks. Click a the blank subtask and then hit TAB+N on your keyboard to create a subsection (yes, this is not apparent at all - a hidden gem, indeed). Rename your subsection and shift it up down to place it where you want

Of course, @Jan-Rienk is also correct, you can achieve this with custom fields. Just laying out your options.

[Bobby_Goldstein]

Ok, I tried this

• First, thank you. I don’t think I’d have stumbled on the tab-N
• It seems to work perfectly well with one rule
• But I have more than one question in the form
  • There is more than one (sub)task that might be added, depending on user responses
  • It’s not a strict either/or, user can select responses that add more than one task at a time
• If I activate more than one rule, this gets messed up
  • Let’s say:
    • Rule A checks for a ‘yes’ value in field A
      • if there’s a yes, it creates subtask A in subsection A
      • Any other response it does nothing
      • If this is the only rule triggered, it works fine
    • Rule B checks for a ‘yes’ value in field B
      • if there’s a yes, it creates subtask B in subsection B
      • Any other response it does nothing
      • If this is the only rule triggered, it works fine
    • But if the user triggers both rule A and rule B
      • I’m finding both subtask A and subtask B in subsection B

[Jan-Rienk]

This is going a bit too far off topic, so I turned this into a standalone thread.

Yes, currently the only way to force a rule execution order is to chain rules. That means have the first rule do one thing, and trigger the next rule.

You won’t have this problem if you use custom fields to group instead of sections, as per my initial suggestion.