Still waiting for an update on this.
If Asana would just add a different condition to this action, we could solve this very easily using rules.
We just need to be able to say if all subtasks are not complete, then mark task as incomplete (and i also added an action to post a comment tagging the rule triggerer)
2 Likes
I don’t yet have access the new rule builder, but could you not use a condition to slightly modify this:
IF
All subtasks are marked complete
THEN
[do nothing, or some action to that effect]
ELSE
[your proposed actions]
1 Like
Has this issue been resolved yet?
Hi @Janine_Diana1 ,
I think @Vanessa_Johnson4 (above) was close.
There is actually an option now to select when ‘Incomplete’ so you could create a custom rule as per below:
But the problem is that this rule will only trigger when ALL subtasks are incomplete. What is missing is the option for ANY subtask, here:
Hoping the Asana team can add this soon 
5 Likes
Adding my voice to this ticket. This is a necessary part of project management and Asana really needs to add the capability. Something like:
IF any subtask is incomplete THEN mark parent task incomplete
2 Likes
As a new user, I’m startled to see this hasn’t been addressed in the years since this issue has been raised. It feels like an obvious fix, and it makes me concerned about the tech support of this product.
The closest solution I’ve found to remedy this issue is to use dependencies. If you put a dependency on your TASK that reads “blocked by” and then choose the final SUBTASK, this means that the final subtask will need to be completed/checked off before it will allow you to check off the main task (that it’s nestled under). But this quite a bit of extra work for every single task for what should just be a universal rule that you can set in the app.
Yes. the Any Subtask in Rule is very important
Hey Spencer - this is my exact dilemma with Asana right now. Have you sorted a workaround or did you end up switching programs?
Our team is struggling with this as well. I can’t believe this issue has been identified since 2017 and there is still no solution. It seem like an option to make the main task dependent on the subtasks being completed wouldn’t be a difficult feature.
3 Likes
Has there been any update?
1 Like
This would be a useful option/setting for us too!
1 Like
Allowing a parent task to be marked as “Complete” when there are still one (or more) incomplete subtasks associated with that parent task, is not only frustrating from a workflow perspective, but it also greatly diminishes the usefulness of the Reporting section of Asana; the data becomes far less reliable when it includes incomplete subtasks that are destined to spend eternity in purgatory.
It took us weeks of tedious effort to go back and locate, then clear out (i.e. mark “complete”) years’ worth of incomplete subtasks across hundreds of projects, to clean up the data provided in the Reporting area of Asana. The incomplete subtasks were skewing the data, and it didn’t matter if the project was archived. If a subtask was incomplete, it was counted in the reportable data. It gave the impression that there was LOADS of incomplete or overdue work when in reality, the projects were finished and archived but still contained subtasks that people had neglected to mark as complete. So we’ve now banned the use of subtasks altogether at our organization.
Until Asana provides a solution to this well-known issue, we have found that it’s easier and cleaner to ignore the subtask feature completely.
1 Like
It is indeed a problem we have also experienced which resulted in not using subtasks for a long time. However, our projects are very dense so the Asana projects contained far too many tasks and we lost an overview of what was really important (the major tasks and milestones). We used dependencies wasn’t helping much. Subtasks are there for a reason in my opinion. We have implemented a new workflow where two people are in charge of archiving any of our projects. They make sure all the data is marked complete (and they will have a call with the people in the project when needed). We have also implemented “rules” with a battery next to our milestones/majors tasks containing subtasks. The battery shows us very quickly if subtasks are open due to the battery not being full. That works wonders but is a bit complex to implement as Asana does not yet offer this and you’d have to build it yourself.
1 Like
8 years…?
Hey @Laura_Jager, would you mind sharing some screenshots of the rules you’ve created for your “battery” status?
Hi Jody, ofcourse. Happy to share what we’ve done. I have attached a screenshot from our project (it is in Dutch):
1. We have created a bundle that contains all the needed custom fields and rules, so that you can roll this feature out over all desired projects at once. In case you need to make changes, these will then happen across all those projects at once too.
2. We have added the following custom fields to the bundle:
- Progress
- This will contain the visual battery through the use of the green square emoji’s
- Subtasks (field type number)
- This field will be used for the progress calculation later on.
- Completed / Voltooid (field type number)
- This field will be used for the progress calculation later on.
- % progress (field type formula)
- This custom field will calculate the % progress using the shown formula. This will calculate the total of all completed subtasks and divide this by the total of all subtasks X 100.
3. We have then added the following rules to the bundle:
- New task = fill custom field subtasks with [1]
- This rule ensures that when a new task is added, it automatically gets the subtasks custom field filled with “1” to ensure the formula works correctly.
- This rule checks whether the custom field assignee is empty or not, and in both cases triggers the action to set subtasks to [1]
- Tasks completed = set completed to [1]
- This rule sets the value for the completed custom field to [1] as soon as a task is completed to ensure the formula works correctly.
- This also ensures that when a task gets uncompleted, this value is erased again to ensure the battery features a true reflection of the task progress.
- When % progress is changed = change the battery progress
- This rule checks the % progress of a task as calculated by the % progress formula field. This then automates, depending on the % progress, the featured battery progress.
- We then added this bundle to the desired projects
- For existing tasks with subtasks in these projects, we have manually filled the custom field “subtasks” with [1]. This we have not been able to automate yet unfortunately for exisiting projects / tasks.
- Once everything is filled, we then hide the following custom fields (these will run in the background):
- subtasks
- completed
- progess
This should now work and calculate task progress based on the amount of total subtasks and completed subtasks. This will then visually show this % progress as a battery!
I hope the above is useful to you, if you have any questions let me know!
1 Like
@Jody_Ford1 , here is the english version 
2 Likes
Hi everyone! Garrett here, a Group PM Lead at Asana who owns our core Project Management functionality. I don’t have a more satisfying update for you all, but I do want to at least chime in and acknowledge we are listening and are discussing this internally!
4 Likes
We know you are listening, @Garrett_Knoll
Just a thought, this particular issue could be resolved if we had an additional option in the rule condition 'if any subtask is marked incomplete (as I noted here) or a ‘not’ operator as @Jan-Rienk suggests here.
1 Like