Running Rules on Tasks created by Project Template

[Johan_Esteves]

I have a Project Template that includes a task with a due date. I would like for a rule to run to interact with said task, how can I create a condition that will allow this?

So each time a project is created using this template, the task with the due date will marked as completed via a rule.

Thanks

[Christine_Bolton]

@Johan_Esteves,

Welcome to the forum! I’m not sure I completely understand your question, so please forgive me if my answer is off base.

There is no rule that will allow you to complete a task based on another project being created. You MIGHT (and this is a big might) be able to use a combination of rules to make this happen, but without creating all of this I can’t be sure.

I would image that if you used a custom field to give the task in that project a specific attribute & then use the due date rule you could have the task complete itself. It wouldn’t immediately complete the task, but the task would complete at midnight after the project is created.

Please let us know if you try this and it works. Maybe someone else will have a better solution for you.

Christine

[Richard_Sather]

Hi @Johan_Esteves , welcome to the forum

Same as @Christine_Bolton , I’m not entirely clear on what you are looking for. I understood that you just want a rule to exist in every project that you create from a template, and said rule to act on all tasks within that project.

If so, you could create a rule (in your project template) with the trigger ‘Due date changed’ then add the condition ‘If due date is set’ and then the action to complete the task.

Would that work?

[Johan_Esteves]

I had tried to trigger the “due date changed”, but it doesn’t seem to trigger when the project is created. Not sure if this is because the task created on project creation is already set with the relative due date.

So to give a complete example:
In the Project template, we have a task whose purpose is to have a due date. We do this because we want the Project end date to be 90 days from project creation. There is no option to do this in the Project template settings, so the workaround we have is to create a task that had a due date 90 days out and that sets the Project due date to that same date for each project created from this template.

Since that is the task’s only purpose, we would like to mark it complete or delete it as soon each time a Project is created, thus we are trying to find a rule to target it. This task is the only task outside of a section with a due date, so I’m trying to create rule, but I’m not able to get it to work.

Hope that helps clarify.

[Johan_Esteves]

Template Task:

[Richard_Sather]

Thanks for the explanation @Johan_Esteves . It’s always best to describe your goal so we now have the bigger picture! I misunderstood you wanted a rule in the project to complete all tasks whenever the due date changes, after the project has been created.

Unfortunately, I believe rules won’t fire as expected upon creation of a project from a template. But reviewing your context and the purpose of that task, I believe you are correct to add it as a placeholder so it sets the due date of your project (so it shows up in your Portfolios, I assume) but to be honest, the simplest thing would be to have people manually delete that task, upon project creation. You have done well to place it at the top and include the word [DELETE] in the task name so I don’t see how it could go wrong, really.

My only alternative suggestion would be to split your placeholder task into two milestones; one called ‘Start date’ and the other called ‘End date’ or whatever makes sense to you. That way, these will also serve a purpose in the long run and will also show up in your portfolios for better visibility.
You may also consider using milestones for the start and end of each phase/stage of your project, such as ‘Start Implementation Record’ and ‘Complete Implementation Record’ etc.