Repeating Tasks with Subtasks - Maintain Multi-home for subtasks

[Jenny_Claar]

I am looking for a new way to track insurance renewals which happen annually. We are currently representing one insurance renewal per project, but this has gotten bulky. I would like to create one project for all insurance renewals, and represent each insurance renewal as a parent task. The steps needed for each renewal (Parent Task) would be displayed as sub-tasks.

As Bastien has said before

@Bastien_Siebman

For me subtasks are steps of a given task, whatever its environment. This is the result of you splitting the work of a task assigned to you. It is often a private split of a publicly assigned work.

I love this mindset, and think that my team may benefit from less projects, and instead using tasks/subtasks to distribute their work. for the most part the parent task and it’s subtasks will be the responsibility of a single team member. But the sub-tasks would allow the team member to ask for help on certain parts of the process only as needed. I have set up a test project to try this out.

These parent tasks will have sub-tasks breaking down each step within the renewal process. Phase 1 of the renewal process is always handled by the same assistant.

This assistant likes to view her tasks in her own project, which I’ll call “E’s Project”. so, the sub-tasks that are her responsibility need to be multi-homed to “E’s Project”. In order to create the first instance of each parent task upon launch, I have created a template task with subtasks, and phase 1 subtasks are all assigned to E and multi-homed to “E’s Project”. This works perfectly when creating a new task with the template.

The issue comes because I want the parent tasks to repeat annually, (instead of creating from a template every year). I have the start & end date set to the month of the insurance renewal and then to repeat annually.

I have rules in place to make sure a repeated task begins at the first section of the project. And the subtasks are all re-generating on the repeated task as desired.

I am specifically having an issue with the sub-tasks assigned to E. The sub-tasks assigned to E on the new parent task are not maintaining the multi-home in “E’s Project” that I’d set up on the original parent task.

Am I doing something incorrectly? Or is there a workaround I’m not thinking of?
Since rules cannot currently affect sub-tasks, and I cannot make a rule to add a subtask that is already multi-homed, I am hoping there’s something else I can do.

[Bastien_Siebman]

@Jenny_Claar

I love this mindset, and think that my team may benefit from less projects,

You are going in the exact opposite direction of what I preach to my clients

My quote was pointing out that subtasks should (often) not be assigned to anyone or have a due date, they are a list of checkpoints. When my clients use subtasks too much, assign them with due date, I always advise to create more projects (while still keeping a main board with a card for each “project”.

However it looks like a single person would be responsible for the subtasks, which seems perfectly fine just wanted to clarify!

@Jenny_Claar

This assistant likes to view her tasks in her own project, which I’ll call “E’s Project”. so, the sub-tasks that are her responsibility need to be multi-homed to “E’s Project”.

That’s exactly the kind of things why subtasks are so “hard to work with” right now and why having a regular project for each insurance seemed like a good idea.

So basically your issue is that when a task with subtask is recurring the multi-homing of subtasks is not kept?

[Jenny_Claar]

@Bastien_Siebman

So basically your issue is that when a task with subtask is recurring the multi-homing of subtasks is not kept?

Yes, that is exactly the issue.

@Bastien_Siebman

You are going in the exact opposite direction of what I preach to my clients

That’s hilarious I must have been experiencing some confirmation bias there!

My initial set-up using projects came about because of the point I’ve seen so many make on the forum that if there’s 10+ subtasks it should probably be a project instead. Plus using the portfolios to track progress are great as well. I do like the one project per insurance renewal approach, but based on input from my team I was looking at alternatives to cut down on the number of tasks that are assigned to them and showing up in their My Tasks, while still encouraging them to use the checklist of steps for each insurance renewal.

So that’s where I thought tasks & subs might work better. But for sure I am running into the limitations of that approach.

Asana is relatively new to us (using it as a team for just a year) and prior to that my office was doing so much with physical papers, it’s a miracle I have them using a digital tool like this. I may just need to give us more time to grow into the use of this tool and focus on Asana adoption instead of scrapping my initial approach and revamping everything so soon.

[Bastien_Siebman]

@Jenny_Claar

I was looking at alternatives to cut down on the number of tasks that are assigned to them and showing up in their My Tasks

Usually such complains rises up when people do not use My Tasks properly, meaning they don’t have the right sections, did not setup the task auto promotion rule, don’t use dependencies…

@Jenny_Claar

it’s a miracle I have them using a digital tool like this

Well done!

@Jenny_Claar

I may just need to give us more time to grow into the use of this tool and focus on Asana adoption instead of scrapping my initial approach and revamping everything so soon.

Don’t hesitate to reach out for help here. Some of us, including me, are consultant for a living so we can also help go deeper.