recently getting second level subtasks appearing without a rule to create them

English Forum Ask the Community
, , ,
1

Hello Asana Forum

  1. We have several projects with rules to create subtasks which are generally working great. However, I’m trying to find out why in the last few days, we are all of a sudden getting second level subtasks appearing in projects when there is no rule set up to create them
  2. I’ve checked and rechecked the rules where the subtask and where the second level task is apparently stemmed from based on the activity record; I opened the subtask to ensure no second level subtasks are there by mistake.
  3. I’m not sure were these are coming from and how to fix this.

Thank you for any guidance!

1 Like
2

Thanks for flagging this — I know how confusing phantom second level subtasks can be when you’ve already triple checked your rules. Here are some troubleshooting tips that come to mind:

  1. Open one of the unexpected level 2 subtasks and check its activity feed for a rule name. Look for “This rule ran” or “Asana created this.” It should show which project and which rule fired.

  2. Review rules in every project the parent task is in. If the parent is multi-homed, a rule in another project can create subtasks on it.

  3. In the project’s Rules, look for anything that runs on subtasks. If a rule has “apply to subtasks” enabled or uses a broad trigger like “task added to project,” it can hit subtasks too. Try toggling that off to test.

  4. Check My Tasks rules for the assignee. Personal rules can create subtasks that then appear in the project.

  5. Inspect the “Create subtasks” action content. If your rule uses a duplicated task/template as the blueprint, it might include nested subtasks you didn’t expect. Open that blueprint subtask and make sure it doesn’t already have its own subtasks.

  6. Consider integrations. Zapier, Make, API scripts, or Forms can add subtasks and sometimes target subtasks as the parent if fields or references changed recently.

  7. Try a quick repro: duplicate the project or pause rules, then re-enable them one by one and perform the trigger to see which one spawns the level 2 subtask.

3

We have seen this exact same problem as @Stephanie_Jones4 . Our rules are now suddenly duplicating sub-tasks as sub-sub-tasks as well. We saw it first happen yesterday.

Beside the unwanted duplicated and nested sub-tasks this triggered another problem for us, when using the API: When fetching tasks for a section, also sub-tasks having their own sub-tasks are returned. Not only the top-level section tasks as we were expecting. These two issues might be related (or we have just been unlucky and hit both with our usage of Asana).

@Stefan_Kirilov PM me, if you want more details from me.