Will do my best to articulate this question clearly. We are an accounting firm. We have client projects set up for all of our clients. We often have a need to perform a particular action on all clients which we would obviously then create a task in each project for the team member assigned to each client/project to complete (one by one creating a task in each project for the action to take).
The question is, is there a way we could create a single task and then have a waterfall of rules kick off to create the multitude of tasks in each client project automatically, rather than a one by one creation of tasks either by our manager or by each team member making their own tasks?
The current thought we are noodling on is to have a master project where we have sections for each client. We could then potentially create a single task and have rules where that task creation would create multiple new tasks, one in each section (client), and then have rules where if a task is added to a section (client) to then duplicate the task to that client’s main project. So in essence we would have 2 things: 1. automation of the task creation in the multitude of client projects and 2. a “master” project where we can track progress of each team member in closing down the task for each client.
We are currently stuck on the rule-flow to get many tasks created and moved to the correct sections after making the initial task of the action to take. Any and all ideas/feedback would be appreciated!
Sean
Are all the tasks likely to be relatively the same for each client when you set it up??
Would a project template not work for you??
Have you explored this as an option?
You could have a project template with all the tasks you mentioned. Then for each new client you create a new project using the template and “hey presto” all the tasks will appear.
Just a few thoughts and then I’ll wait for others to chime in:
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Rules are always specific to a single Project.
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The solution that will work for you will depend on the following factors:
- The predictability of the exact tasks you need to add (always the same list of 22 items? or variable? how many versions? new tasks needed on the fly?). If the list is always the same, then templates, either for Projects or for Tasks, may work well.)
- The quantity of those Tasks (solutions that work for 6 Tasks may be overly cumbersome for 85 Tasks)
- Quantity of clients (cumbersomeness as above)
- Do you need full Task functionality for each Task? I.e. assignment, appears in My Tasks, adds to Workload? (probably)
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It may be easier to create a “Kickoff” task which guides the user through a few simple steps, rather than attempt full automation via Rules. The human using the Task can then make the appropriate decisions as to which templates to assemble, etc.
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Whatever you end up doing, it will be fairly complex and require training and maintenance, so I recommend running a small pilot before you go all in.
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There are people in this forum who can help build the customized solution with additional functionality, such as @lpb
Good luck!
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Thanks for the replies. Project templates won’t work because our projects exist and “never end” since a project = a client and the accounting work is ongoing as long as the client remains a client of our firm. The tasks are also not template-able, because these are initiatives or requests that come up from time to time and can be anything. Think of them more like special items to complete, not ongoing repetitive efforts.
“Review client insurance policies for expiration dates and schedule reminder emails to obtain new policy renewal info”, as an example we would want to “deploy” to every client project for the team member assigned to that client to perform rather than manually create the task 100 times for all the clients we work with.
Appreciate the help!