Recurring tasks and subtask dates

English Forum Tips and Tricks
1

I’ve been testing recurring tasks and I have the parent task working the way I want it but the subtask due dates don’t get updated, they stay the same. So the new task is created with subtasks that have dates that don’t make sense/are already overdue.

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2

@Peter_Ross Yes this is how it works and yes I feel your frustration. He is a post on this with some possible work arounds;
https://forum.asana.com/t/expense-reimbursement-reoccurring-task/1808

and this one;

Hope these help.

Jason.

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Thanks @Jason_Woods. Looks like it’s a common problem with no one right solution. Cheers!

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Same problem in our team here.

5

For my company we have been experimenting with Asana in multiple ways. One of the things we tried to do is to check the behaviour of subtasks under a recurring master task to see the influence on the due dates. Unfortunately it turns out the influence is exactly zero.

To clarify:
Master task: “MT” Due July third (recurring monthly)
- Subtask 1: Due July first
- Subtask 2: Due July second

The idea was that after recurring, the MT would prepare ST1 and ST2 and ‘carry’ the due dates along based on the due date of the MT.

So on the next recurrence, MT would have the due date August third, ST1 due August first, ST2 due August second. Unfortunately it turns out that the due date does not seem to travel along on subtasks. Only the Main Task’s due date changes.

Is there something we are missing? If not, are there any plans to add a coupling between MT’s and ST’s due dates in the manner described above? Because as it stands now it appears that recurring tasks and subtasks are incompatible when using due dates.

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As of today, a task (or subtask) due date is never influenced by anything else…

Bastien
Asana Certified Pro, consultant, author and developer

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Hi @Remco! @Bastien is right, as it stands, setting “MT” to repeat every month won’t automatically update “MT” subtasks due date; this would have to be done manually I’m afraid.

I’ve gone ahead and merged your post with Recurring tasks and subtask dates as it covers the same topic. There are also some workaround available here: Expense Reimbursement Reoccurring Task 174

Hope this helps!

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Would love to see this improved, so that subtasks can have relative deadlines / due dates.

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+1 Every week our team members submit a Weekly Report status update. The parent task is set to recur every week with a due date of the next Friday. The subtasks are simply a breakdown for each individual person. Ideally, those subtasks would recur with the same due date as the parent task, but instead, it keeps the due date from the original parent task. The problem gets even worse when someone prematurely marks the parent task complete, and then people end up with two identical tasks in their list and the don’t know which one is the correct subtask for current week and which is for the following week.

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Any updates? Disheartening to read the struggles for 2 years and no real change.

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How can this still not be fixed? ClickUp has this straightened out since forever with awesome due date options! We seriously need a major update on this feature!

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12

Ugh. Hitting this same issue. Is there a fix on the roadmap? (please!)

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I have also ran into this problem. Can’t think of a use case where a subtask should inherit the original due date.

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14

Perfectly stated!

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15

This is a major issue for us that we are still trying to work around

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I have just stumble on this one as well :frowning:. I hope it will be fixed soon.
@Paul_Grobler here is the one use case we have on our projects:

  • every 3 months mayor report on a project needs to be fulfilled
  • report is complex, so each one is divided in several sub-tasks, assigned to different people
  • due date of mayor report (task level) drives all the due dates of sub-tasks (which gives us also overview of tasks/sub-tasks by user thus enabling one kind of resource planning)
  • when all sub-tasks are completed, we have completed mayor report as well, and dates of both task and sub-tasks are shifted to another quarter
17

We’re also having this issue. A large portion of our work revolves around recurring monthly tasks and their associated subtasks.

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I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing. This is a major issue that should be fixed.

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Super frustrating for us too, we have over 100 re-curring tasks with 1-2 recurring subtasks. My team is so ready to give up on Asana

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This is really frustrating. Any chance of having an option to inherit parent task due date?

1 Like