Creating recurring timelines

[Justin_Hassan]

I’m rather new to Asana and I couldn’t find this answer in the generic help or through google.

As an example, I want to create a monthly newsletter in a project. This is a consistent process every month, so I want to somewhat automate it.
Task from the 3rd to the 12th of every month: I want my team to brainstorm ideas from that month’s subject material.
Task on the 12th we meet to review and make decisions and assignments for sections of the newsletter.
Task from the 13th-20th, drafts of sections are due.
Task from the 20th-27th, newsletter graphics assembled and overall draft completed.
Task on the 27th, team meets to finalize newsletter.
Task on the 1st, newsletter released to supported communities.

These are pieces of the timeline I would like to create with monthly reoccurrence and also have dependencies between them as they are a step by step process.

What I’ve noticed is that while this works perfectly well in automation (but could be better if I could set monthly recurrences to be based on “First monday” rather than a numerical date), when I set this loop of dependencies, unless we are on step 1, the dependency chain always shows a loop back.

For example, if I set it so that task 1 blocks task 2 blocks task 3, with all 3 recurring monthly, when I mark task 1 complete, a new task 1 is created in the next month, which is STILL BLOCKING task 2. So there’s now a giant red dependency arrow crossing back across my timeline. If we mark task 2 complete, then a new task 2 is created and now is still blocking task 3, but at least the task 1–>task 2 block appears correctly.

Is there a way to fix this, or a way to accomplish this goal more effectively?

[Emily_Roman]

Hi @Justin_Hassan, welcome to the Asana Community Forum!

I see what you mean. When the new recurring task is duplicated, it will be automatically set as dependent of the task that was already completed. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, if you wish to remove the dependencies, you will need to check the dependent task “Incomplete” to click the “X”.

As a workaround, instead of setting the task as recurrent, you can duplicate the task and untick the box that duplicates the dependencies. By doing so, the new task won’t be marked as dependant and you won’t need to manually remove it every time a new task is created.

Another workaround would be to create one project per newsletter and have a project template you can duplicate each month when you need to start working on a new newsletter. With this optio you can also schedule the due dates of your tasks automatically, see more details here: How to Use Asana Custom Templates • Asana

I hope this helps!

[Justin_Hassan]

Hello @Emily_Roman , thanks so much for the welcome and your answer.

I worked around a little trying your suggestions and had a couple of follow-up questions.

1. In my example, I’m setting around 6 tasks. I notice the ability to drag/drop tasks as needed, and multi-select. But is there a multi-duplicate? If not, that’s still a lot of work organizing a timeline which to me, defeats the purpose of the organization system. Goal here would be to automate this identical system month to month.
2. Creating a project per newsletter using a template seems like a large amount of clutter. This was something I was interested in attempting normally, but there doesn’t seem to have a way to link projects? I like where newsletters sit within our current ‘master check-in’ that serves as a basecamp for our weekly team meetings, so that we can see an overview of timelines for multiple projects. Originally I wanted a newsletter project alongside 2 other long term project templates, all linked back to our weekly team meeting template, similar to notion’s linked databases, but that doesn’t appear doable. Again, I’m very new, so I may be incorrect.