Notifications on dependent sub-tasks

One of the main reasons we went to Asana Premium was to use the dependency feature. Our tasks are individual campaigns and each sub-task is something that needs to get done for that campaign. The sub-tasks are setup to be dependent on other sub-tasks. However, when the first task completes, the 2nd user isn’t notified. How do I change this??

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I’m quite sure there’s a notification. So I tested it with my team mate just to be 100% sure.

I don’t remember having a special setup for the notification. Perhaps the 2nd user missed it?

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I would love the tasks which are waiting to be moved to the Upcoming once the ones they depend from are marked as done.
@Alexis anything that can be achieved? :slight_smile:

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This would assume that everyone marking a task as waiting on keeps their tasks in the same categories (today/upcoming/later), so this functionality is not possible at this time. The way I work around this is I make sure I’m a collaborator on all tasks I’m waiting on. So, when someone finishes the task I’m waiting on in order to do my work, I get a notification in my inbox and I know to get started on my work or recategorize it. :slight_smile:

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I talked with the Asana support team. The issue was that I was marking the previous task incomplete (for testing), so I wasn’t notified about the dependent task.

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@Alexis: Slightly different wish… it sure would be nice if dependent tasks could be either hidden or grouped automatically in My Tasks. By definition, these are tasks I can’t do anything with, but they clutter the My Tasks list. My team makes extensive use of task templates, which means at any given time I’m assigned to dozens of tasks that won’t become relevant until later in the year.

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I feel you @Craig_Fifer. :slight_smile:

We have a project called “Roles and Responsibilities” where each task represent a role which is then assigned to a member of the team. We only complete the task if the role is no longer needed, which means all these tasks will live in each of our My Tasks list.

So, what I do is to move these tasks into the “Later” section. There, tasks are automatically grouped by projects and are all collapsible. I can hide all my roles there and forget about them. :slight_smile:

I’d imagine you can also do these for the template tasks assigned to you.

Or another solution would be to not have assignees in the template tasks. Add a marker or a tag to identify to whom the task should be assigned in case the template is to be used. We do that for our onboarding tasks. Each task is tagged with the role name. Then, when there’s a new member onboarding our team, we copy the onboarding project, and crosscheck the role tags with the Roles and Responsibilities project and see who’s assigned to that role. Only then do we assign the tasks. :grin:

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Yeah, I have “Template Tasks” and “Dependent Tasks” sections at the bottom of My Tasks. As for assignees, I actually like that I can include those in the template. I just wish I could check “Hide in My Tasks” for the items I choose.

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Huge HUGE up vote here. Right now the dashboards are almost useless to my users. There is no way for them to tell, short of clicking into every task, what they can actually work on.

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Indirectly this does re-inforce the need for “waiting on” to be a field in Advanced Searches.

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I agree… being able to have tasks filtered out that are dependent on other tasks being completed first would be a game changer for us. Another huge upvote from us. :slight_smile:

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Did this topic gain any momentum with the Asana gods?

Looks like this topic has gone in a few different directions. Some of the initial questions were answered. However, if you’d like to submit product feedback specifically, you can do so in the #productfeedback category :slight_smile:

Thanks Alexis

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I REALLY want to see this happen too. As a principle, I don’t want to know about a task unless it’s something I can actually do.

That means 1. don’t show me a task when it’s not possible for me to complete it due to dependencies and 2. don’t show me tasks from Template projects, where I shouldn’t want to complete the task (which would make the template unusable) - Project Template assigned tasks show up in My Tasks automatically

In general, I’m really happy with the user experience in Asana, but these seem like really silly oversights.

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It looks like this behavior may have changed, at least for top-level tasks. I just did a quick test:

  • I created Task 1 assigned to me
  • I created Task 2 assigned to me
  • I made Task 2 dependent on Task 1
  • I marked Task 1 complete
  • I went to my Inbox to check if I received a notification. I did NOT receive a notification

Is there a way to re-enable these notifications? Is it possible this is a bug? In case it is I also reported it at Not receiving notifications when dependent tasks are complete

@Katriel_Friedman, I suspect the issue is Asana stifles notifications to yourself (I wish they didn’t for some cases like dependencies):

Larry

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That’s too bad; it would be nice to be able to get this reminder that there are things dependent on something I’ve accomplished. Is there a relevant #productfeedback post I can upvote about this, @Marie?

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