I have been searching for a workflow that would make working with subtasks easier. Originally I wanted to create a master task that would contain subtasks, and only promote the subtasks to the project that needed to be worked on currently. However, this proved to be too complicated and something that was difficult to teach the rest of the staff to do. So I was manually doing this… but I think I found a better way. To be clear, this is when you need to add tasks with subtasks to an already created project.
Painting the picture, here is sort of how my tasks are setup. I use the Deliverable as the master task, then all the subtasks are the tasks that go into completing the master task aka deliverable.
Create Promo (deliverable)
Research
Write script
Pre-Production
Shooting days
Editing
Distribute video
So the old way I was handling this is to:
- Duplicate the deliverable task “Create Promo”
- Add that duplicated task to the proper project
- Rename that task
- Find saved “advanced” search report to promote subtasks
- Alter search for the current project
- Select all the subtasks in the results (select in the order you want them displayed in the project)
- Add subtask to the proper project
- Reorganize any tasks that were pushed down due to adding these tasks
The new way:
- Duplicate the deliverable task “Create Promo” - ensure you uncheck “due date”
- That will duplicate the master task and subtasks pre-promoted to the project. Add these duplicated tasks to the proper project
- Rename the master task
- Reorganize any tasks that were pushed down due to adding these tasks
So 4 steps instead of 8.
How to set this up.
- Build a template project, where you have all your tasks and subtasks in the project pain.
- Set your custom fields for all items.
- Move the tasks you want to be subtasks one-by-one to the master task
- Use advanced search to show these subtasks, and promote them to the project, by “add to project”
- Set the due date for all the tasks to 2030 (or whatever future date you want to use)
That’s it… you are setup and ready to duplicate that master task unchecking due date, which will put all those new tasks at the bottom of your list. Then just follow the 4 steps above to set them to the new project. It’s easy, but it takes a bit to wrap your mind around what’s going on.
The snapshot provided shows the template deliverable (master task) with the subtasks underneath it, all with a due date of 2030. The 2nd deliverable also has subtasks under it, with no due date, these are ready to be moved to a project when needed. Just select them, and “add to project.” Done! Hopefully this will help some of you who maybe have a similar workflow. BTW, when Asana adds the ability to do mass operations using “Make subtask of,” that may render most of my new workflow shown above useless.