The new template feature is great! But you can only set relative subtask deadlines based on the the create date of the task. I’d like to be able to set those relative subtask dates based on the overall due date of the task instead of the creation date. I.e. for an email task the subtasks would be relative based on the send date of the email.
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Hi @Ali_Hough, welcome to the Asana Community Forum and thanks for sharing your feedback with us! Hopefully this is something we can implement for Task Templates in the future!
+1 for this change. I agree with @Ali_Hough. This is much needed! It seems that giving the user a choice of setting subtask due dates relative to EITHER the parent task’s creation date OR the parent task’s due date would be the best solution!
Here’s our use case to further explain the need for this task template functionality change: In our office, we are client driven with most of our projects. So, it works better for us to structure Asana by using Projects as “clients”, Tasks as “projects” and Subtasks as “tasks”. The difficulty I’ve faced with with using templates is we cannot control when a project request is submitted. We work backwards from the Need Date (due date) and then determine when the subtasks should be due based off that. Therefore, in our case, “when the parent task is due” drives the project – NOT “when the task is created”.
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+1. This has been suggested in the past, and as I recall the best workaround was to use a third-party tool (Teplatana, something like that?). My team would use this feature all the time, as we have many templatized projects (“tasks” in Asana lingo) with subtasks that have to happen sequentially, so they have dependencies. We use Instagantt to visualize these dependencies and adjust the timelines (again, wish this view were built in to Asana). But at the moment, without “relative dates”, whenever we duplicate our template task, we have to manually go in and set dates accordingly.
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Here’s an earlier thread requesting this feature:
“Flowsana” was the third-party tool’s name. 
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Hi There,
Really hoping this gets implemented as well, I don’t really understand, it’s only useful if you are putting the template into the calendar on the exact date you want it to count down/date relative to.
We need the ability to pick which day we are starting the task template date relative to.
So you insert task template, then choose a date, then it sets up all the relative dates.
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When creating a task from a Template that has Due Dates, it uses the date the task is created as the start date for when all of the subtasks should be due.
It would be very helpful to be able to pick the start date or final due date of a task, and then the subtasks assigned automatic due dates based on the start/due date.
This is helpful as our team builds out tasks far in advance and prioritizes which are due first. Most of the tasks are built out during planning meetings, so if we used the feature as-is, we would have all tasks due at the same time, when in fact we need to stagger them based on other task’s start/due dates.
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Hi @Grant_Lacey, welcome to the Asana Community Forum 
Thanks for taking the time to provide this feedback We do have an existing feature request for this in the forum already so I’ve gone ahead and merged your post with the existing one to consolidate feedback, I hope you don’t mind!
Hopefully this is something our Product team will implement in the future but I’ll keep you posted
FYI it’s not exactly the same as task templates but the “Add subtasks from a template” rule action in Flowsana can do this - it can set subtask dates relative to the due date of the parent task where they are being added. (The reason it’s different from task templates is that task templates are added “on demand” by a user, whereas the “Add subtasks from a template” Flowsana rule action happens in response to some rule trigger condition occurring.)
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+1 - My team could really use this feature! The value of due dates in task templates is really limited without it.
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Hello! Would like to add my voice to this request as well!
In addition, a specific use case for our team would be to have the subtasks in a template be based on another subtask. When we create a project it doesn’t always start right away, so we’d prefer to base the subtasks on the ‘kickoff’ subtask date, essentially building in dependencies to subtasks upon creation.
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+1 for this. would make setting up our monthly tasks soooo much easier.
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Just chiming in to say yes, this is so key! Really need to be able to have subtasks in a template autopopulate their due dates when the task due date is assigned after the task is created from the template (as opposed to only being able to set the due date for the task in the template based on date of creation of the task). Or at least conditional logic on the subtask dependencies (i.e., a subtask dependency that is 1 week before the task due date, 3 days before, etc.).
Hi Phil! So does this mean if I want to use Flowsana to set subtask dates relative to the due date of the parent task, I shouldn’t use the Asana task template that’s built in, but instead should set up Flowsana to assign all of the subtasks? (Let me know if that question doesn’t make sense, ha!)
Hi @Sarah_Cottrell,
Right! As I say, it’s not an exactly equal replacement because Flowsana adds subtasks via firing a rule, rather than doing it by adding a task template. If you can add the parent task and then figure out a good rule trigger condition to fire off the rule, then Flowsana will add the subtasks and set their dates relative to the due date of the parent task. (We would key off of the task template if we could, but those are not accessible via the Asana API.)
For more info, see the very bottom of this page; and feel free to write to support at flowsana dot net for more help.
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So many of our workflows are exactly what’s described here: we have a due date to ship a finished piece of work and the subtasks are all the steps that get us to that finished product on that date. We will use the heck of of this feature if it gets added.
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HUGE +1 for this feature! This would solve a ton of Manuel inputting for us.
+1 for use too. It would save us loads of time allocating dates.
Another +1. We just started using task templates and this would be REALLY helpful on a content calendar (when planning ahead for stories).
+1, our team needs this feature