This is hard to explain with written words, But I’ll try!!!
Project has several tasks with dependencies.
The project has most members as comment only to prevent accidental changes of data.
When a task is done that is blocking another task, the next task is promoted.
When the person doing that task realizes the previous tasks was done incorrectly, there is no way for them to “incomplete” the task to send it back.
I see two options:
Remove comment only restriction and live with the risk of erroneous changes of data and allow people to reopen tasks to reactivate the dependency.
Have the new task owner create a follow up of the previous task that needs to be reworked and reassign it to the person that needs to redo their task. But then how do we create a way for them to know when it’s done (again)?
Trying to find a user friendly way to resolve this. Anyone have any best practices? Help!
You could create a custom field that has options such as:
Completed, In Progress, Previous Tasks Need Adjustment (or however you want to word it)
Create the rule where the trigger is when one of your members changes the status to “Previous Tasks Need Adjustment” and the action would be to mark incomplete.
The con to this is I do believe you will have to allow editing privileges to your teammates/employees so you will not be constantly running this rule.
I think you’re right, comment only cannot modify custom fields for tasks not assigned to them. But maybe I can play around with rules a little. I’m surprised no one has run into this, It’s hard thing to search for.
Rules are extremely helpful and intuitive. I would encourage you to review the Asana instructions as they helped me figure it out and onboard my team appropriately.
I was able to create a rule that if I added a comment the task would be marked incomplete. Which would put the task back in My tasks, and reinstate the dependency. But I can’t get it to run. :(. I’m sooo close!!
Interesting, I just ran that same rule multiple times and it worked. I wonder if the dependencies are messing with it.
Try adding “Task is no longer blocked” as a second trigger for this rule. Please make sure you select “When ALL triggers occur” or this will not work out.
still no dice. It’s the first task I’m trying to change to incomplete. And in this example it is not blocked itself, but it is blocking the second test. I can’t figure out why it’s not working. It’s something stupid I’m doing/not doing I’m sure. I’m going to keep playing with it.
Thank you so much for your help! And encouraging me to look into rules!
FYI I had designed a potential integration to provide this type of “mini-approval workflow” where person A requests work from person B, person B does the work, but it can’t be considered complete until person A accepts said work as complete:
I’m curious what you think of this idea. I’ve not had a chance to pursue it yet (too busy with Flowsana), but I still think about it from time to time.
I figured out my problem!!! I am using subtasks… and now I remember you can’t run rules on subtasks.
So maybe I redo the whole project. I’m constantly disappointed with subtasks.
Just thought you might want to know, the person from support helped me come up with a workaround. I have all of subtasks linked to another project called Calendar so people can see the view of when the tasks are due, I was able to set up the rule on that project. It works beautifully!!!
