Dragging a subtask from side panel on top of a section now removes it as a subtask from its parent task

Briefly describe the Bug you’re experiencing:

As of today, whenever we drag a subtask from the side panel view onto a section in the main table view, it removes the subtask from the parent task list.

Previously, when dragging it onto this section it would multihome the subtask so that it existed both within its parent task and within the project.

We adopted this workflow to overcome the limitations of subtasks in Asana where we still needed context of what parent task it belonged to while also gaining visibility of them on the timeline and workload views.


This was tested on multiple user accounts from multiple browsers.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Within a new project, create 2 Sections (we’ll call these Section A and Section B).
  2. Create a Task (we’ll call this Task A) within Section A.
  3. Create a Subtask within Task A (we’ll call this Subtask A.1).
  4. From the side panel (Task Details) of Task A, Grab the handle of Subtask A.1 by clicking down on the left mouse button—the handle looks like six dots when hovering over Subtask A.1 within the side panel view.
  5. While still holding the left mouse button down, drag Subtask A.1 over and on top of Section B. Ensure that the row for Section B is highlighted in gray.
  6. Release the mouse button, multihoming Subtask A.1 into Section B.

Prior behavior would have kept Subtask A.1 as a subtask of Task A while also promoting it to a parent task within Section B. This no longer works and has irrevocably broken our workflow in Asana beyond repair.

Browser version:

Tested on Both:

  • Google Chrome Version 99.0.4844.51 (Official Build) (x86_64)
  • Safari Version 15.3 (17612.4.9.1.8)

Upload screenshots below:

Here are two Loom videos. One showcasing how things worked 2 days ago and one showcasing how it is broken today.

1 Like

@Emily_Roman — Can you confirm if this recent change is expected behavior or a bug? We need to know ASAP so we can determine if Asana is still a viable solution for us or not. :pray:

@Rebecca_McGrath - If ya watch the Loom videos I included, I demonstrate the exact behavior I described where we were able to drag a subtask into a section and multihome it without it losing it’s subtask status.

Also, it is definitely possible for a subtask to live as both a subtask and a subtask within a single project. We’re doing it right now and have been every day for awhile.

My post was about the way in which one could do that has recently changed.

We thankfully found a workaround via the API that’s saving us time and making subtasks work on the timeline and workload views.

Having the same issue! Ugh frustrating!

Yeah, they completely deprecated (broke) the feature. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

For me this is a bug being fixed :sweat_smile: I did not see any reason why, depending on where you dropped a subtask, it would stay a subtask or not.

Right, I’m sure that’s why they changed the behavior - while some people took advantage of the differing behaviors, I’ll bet it was confusing (and thus generated a bunch of support tickets) for more people!

Yeah, I get the desire to make things consistent. I’m sure it was easier to fix than the duplicating subtasks issue with recurring tasks or nest portfolios not being able to display workload.

Luckily we were able to resolve this via the API

Ya may not have to hear me complain about it much longer though :rofl:, we grabbed an annual license to Wrike Business. It has it’s own quirks as well but it solves our most critical pain points here. Migrating is going to be a blast…

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