Deploy task copy to multiple projects without linking tasks

[Whitney_B]

Hello,

• We have a portfolio of 23 projects.
• There are certain recurring project management tasks that I’d like each project owner to complete and I’d like to set up tasks within each project for these. T
• This use case is different from wanting to multi-home a task across multiple projects as I don’t want the tasks to remain linked (i.e. don’t want completion status, comments, etc. to flow across projects)-- What I want is to create a standardized task and then quickly deploy it out to multiple projects.

I believe my options here are one of the following:

1. Duplicate taskCreate task in one of the projects. Then, duplicate the task 22 times and move a single copy to each project. Not difficult but not a very efficient use of time.
2. Create master taskCreate a master, parent task. Then, create a sub-task for each project and assign the sub-task to the project owner. Another option is to use the multi-home feature but request project owners to not check off parent completion; only sub-task completion. Benefit is time savings and that I could monitor sub-task completion and mark the parent task complete when all sub-tasks are complete. Downside is that these wouldn’t show up as a task in each project- they would only show up in the project owner’s “My tasks” (unless I used the multi-home approach which risks folks easily forgetting and marking the parent task complete
3. Import taskCreate the task in a CSV. Then, individually import the task to each project. As w/ #1 this ensures standardization of the task but is tedious

I think what I’m looking for is an admin console type space where I could quickly deploy a task to multiple projects without the tasks remaining linked to each other.

Is there a way to do this? Any tips or tricks?
Thanks!

[lpb]

@Whitney_B,

In addition to the options you listed…

If you’re on the Business or Enterprise plan, you could do this easily with a rule.

If not, you could automate with flowsana.net, zapier.com, or make.com.

A modification of your master task: You can use Assign duplicates on a subtask of the master task to get all the assignees set automatically (but not the multi-homing, though you keep one task around and duplicate it, pre-multi-homed). See my example at:

Assign multiple assignees on one task

@Mathieu_Urstein , In case it might help until a better solution is implemented for “All of them need to have this into their calendar and the task should display easily the fact that those team members should attend the meeting” were you aware of: . . . and scroll down to Assign duplicate tasks. This works for subtasks too, as you requested (the example shows tasks), so if you make a meeting subtask as you described in your last post and you give that a recurring due date to reflect the me…

Hope that helps,

Larry

[Whitney_B]

Thanks @lpb!

We are on a business plan- but it looks like I would need to set up a rule for every project in the portfolio, right? (e.g. could use the “Task added to this project → Add to another project” but I’d still have to make 23 versions of the rule).

I’ll take a look at the example you linked and see if that will work.

[lpb]

You’re welcome, @Whitney_B!

I think you could do this with a separate project that just houses five rules (unfortunately you need 23 actions and there’s a limit of five actions per rule so you need five rules).

The triggers could be whatever you find easiest, a single-select custom field with five option values (trigger: changed), or five sections (trigger: Moved to section ).

The actions would be Create new task (not Add to another project which is multi-homing which you said you didn’t want).

The first rule would trigger the first five actions (use the + sign to add multiple actions to the rule). Action 1 would home the created task to project 1 of 23. Action 2 to project 2 of 23. Etc.

I haven’t tried this but believe it would work.

Thanks,

Larry