Need help with task templates. Need to select due date manually instead of "Days from task created"

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1

I need to make a task template with an arbitrary due date, and sub tasks that are generated with due dates that are a certain number of days back from the main task.

I know that you can create task templates that generate task and subtasks due dates by a “days from task creation” function, but the user has to make hundreds of these tasks, and doing the math on how many days out each task/subtasks is would not work for them. They need to just be able to select a date on a calender and have the rest of the subtasks auto populate based on preset parameters, eg: a number of days prior to the selected due date.

I know I could create a project template that can accommodate this issue, but the user wants to create many tasks within the same project, instead of creating many projects within the same portfolio.

Any ideas?

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Hi @Evan_Coates , welcome to the forum :wave:

You could leverage a Rule to this, eg. when the Due date is changed, then Create subtasks. You could optionally add a condition or skip it.

In the rule action to create subtasks, you can use a variable to be X days before/after the due date that was entered.

You could also use alternative triggers instead, such as when a custom field called ‘Create subtasks’ is selected or use a manual trigger instead, whatever suits best.

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Thanks Richard! This works.

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That’s great to hear, @Evan_Coates !

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This solves one issue but then creates another…If I need to change the date on the parent task, I end up with duplicate tasks which I have to manually delete. Any way to automatically delete the old subtasks but keep the new subtasks?

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Hi @Alana_Ramsay , welcome to the forum :waving_hand:
There is currently no rule action that deletes tasks or subtasks. Perhaps getting to the root of the problem would be to avoid the creation of subtasks (again) in the first place, by perhaps adding a certain condition to your rule?

For example, once subtasks are created the first time, you could get that rule to action a change a field’s value for example, setting an option called ‘Subtasks added’. Then your rule to create these subtasks would only run if that field option is not set so it does not create subtasks again whenever the due date is changed, in your case.

Or simply create a manual rule trigger to create your subtasks in the first place, eg on-demand.