I have a multi-select task field and would like a task created in a different section for each option selected in the dropdown.
Check if: Impacted Team contains any of “option 1”
Do this: Create a task named “option 1 impacts” - with due date, start date, assignee in the impact assessment section.
added another branch for the next option
Check if: Impacted Team contains any of “option 2”
Do this: Create a task named “option 2 impacts” - with due date, start date, assignee in the impact assessment section.
There is a branch for each option available in the dropdown for the impacted team field, however, once the rule creates one task it stops. How do I get it to create tasks for each option selected and not stop after the first one it finds?
Hi @Steph_Nelson , welcome to the forum!
Automations run when an “if” condition is met. When adding branches, the rule will continue to trigger only until the “if” is satisfied.
To have a multi-select field create a task for each selected option, you’ll need a separate rule for each condition.
Luckily, you can now duplicate a rule and simply modify it, rather than building each one from scratch. This should make setting up multiple rules much quicker!
Yeah, not a great workaround for this. Due to the field being on multiple tasks and there not being a setting to select the specific task it’s associated with, leaves it with needing to be manually triggered to run. So that would mean they would need to manually run multiple rules to get the tasks created. Kind of takes the ‘auto’ out of automation. If it was all in one rule then at least they could trigger it just once to populate the tasks once they were done making their selections. I would say this portion of Asana is the part I’m least impressed by so far.
@Steph_Nelson Ah, I have a clearer picture of how you’re intending to use this now.
If I were building a workaround for this, I would create each of the rules separately and have them triggered by a separate custom field, such as a single select “Publish Impacts" with an option titled “Run.” The user would select the appropriate options in the Impacted Team multi-select field and then set Publish Impacts to “Run.”
Each rule could then check for its corresponding option in the Impacted Team field and create the appropriate task.
That way, you’re not relying on multiple branches within a single rule. Each rule can fire independently, allowing it to create a task for every option selected in the multi-select field.
The setup would look something like:
- Publish Impacts = Run
- Rule 1: When Publish Impacts is set to “Run” → If Impacted Team contains Option 1 → create “Option 1 impacts”
- Rule 2: When Publish Impacts is set to “Run” → If Impacted Team contains Option 2 → create “Option 2 impacts”
- etc.
I know it’s not as simple as the branched rule continuing to trigger, but this should give you the behavior you’re looking for without having to duplicate the entire workflow manually each time.
We don’t have the duplicate rule functionality so I’ll have to build them all out myself but this is better than the alternative of making everyone run them manually each time.
Still disappointed in the automation structure. It’s an imperative piece for project management and one too many project management tools are still getting wrong. The point of these tools is partially to make the day to day known items, things we don’t need to think about so we can spend our brain power elsewhere. I would encourage more work here to make it truly comprehensive. Other tech tools have the abilities so no reason our PM tools can’t.
I use a custom field as a trigger to force a single rule to iterate until it goes through all of the options.
Create a dedicated single select field – we’ll call it “Subtask Rule Trigger” – where the options mirror each of the branches in the rule:
- Branch 1 Complete
- Branch 2 Complete
- etc
In the Trigger portion, add “or when Subtask Rule Trigger is changed”
In the Check portion, the first branch checks for Subtask Rule Trigger to be empty, the second branch looks for Subtask Rule Trigger to be set to “Branch 1 Complete,” third branch looks for “Branch 2 Complete,” and so on.
In the Action portion of each branch, add “set Subtask Rule Trigger to Branch # Complete” as the last item.