A recent weekend update to the Asana Desktop App has started forcing a bright yellow warning highlight on my parent task due dates because they have subtasks that are blocked by them and due after them. Hovering over the due date in the task tells me that its because my task’s “Dates don’t match subtask duedates.”
My organization has a standard workflow where a smaller task (like sending or uploading files) is a subtask of the larger task (creating said files). Once my task is complete, it unblocks the subtask for my coworker to complete, which is often due after my task. This is not a chronological mistake or an error on our task management side. It is an intentional, standard workflow my organization has implemented.
The yellow text on my due dates is inconsistent across my task, so it isn’t a helpful update. In fact, this UI change introduced unnecessary visual noise and stress for a workflow that is functioning exactly as intended. Because I am a standard user, I am completely locked out of editing project settings, changing templates, or altering task date ranges to “trick” the system to remove the yellow dates.
It doesn’t seem like there is a native UI toggle in the Desktop App settings to turn off these dependency warning colors. Is there a way to turn this new setting off? If not, that would be a much needed addition to the App settings.
8 Likes
I second this, bad update on the UI, very unhelpful for our workflows, we nearly always have subtasks that have staggered due dates and the parent task will be an overarching deadline or date range, it should not have a warning or be yellow because it’s different to it’s subtasks
6 Likes
Thirding this - we use Asana to project manage conferences, and about 15% of our subtasks will always be things that need doing after the conference to follow up etc. The yellow highlighting is totally unnecessary for my team and I’d love a way to switch it off.
5 Likes
Hi everyone, thanks for sharing this feedback and the specific workflow examples.
I can understand why the yellow date warning feels disruptive here, especially when your parent task date is being used as an intentional milestone or overarching deadline, while some dependent subtasks are expected to happen afterward.
I have converted this as a Product idea, and I’d recommend adding your votes and examples here so the Product team has more context on how this affects real workflows. I will also submit VoC.
In the meantime, if anyone finds this appearing inconsistently across tasks, it may also be worth sharing examples/screenshots with Support so they can confirm whether the behavior is working as intended or there’s a bug. Thank you.
I get the idea of what the team was going for. But the yellow is not helpful, and distracting and confusing. Please let us disable
3 Likes
I’ve TOO have recently started seeing a “Dates don’t match subtask dates” warning on parent tasks. This did not happen previously, and my workflow hasn’t changed.
For example, I have a parent task due Friday with ten subtasks. Three are also due Friday, while others intentionally have different deadlines, including one due December 4. The parent task’s date reflects the deadline I need to track, while the subtasks have their own scheduled dates.
These dates are intentional. However, the warning makes a correctly scheduled task look like something needs fixing and adds unnecessary visual clutter. (This was never the case before the last update and I know it’s been mentioned to “ignore” … but it’s not always that easy when in major project management mode. Sorry.)
Could you please confirm whether this was introduced in a recent update, whether it is intended behaviour or a bug, and whether there is a way to disable or dismiss the warning without changing my dates or task structure? And if the product team is working on fixing this, how long it will take to go back to how things were working normally …
Much thanks all around.