See whether a task has subtasks without drilling down

I must be missing a trick here.

So you build a project with a set of tasks and subtasks etc. Is there a way to see whether a task has any sub-tasks without having to drill down into the task. There needs to be a simple marker which indicates whether a task has sub-tasks? Am I missing something?

Thanks

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Hey @Mark_Spencer

You’re not alone in asking for this feature. In fact, there’s an existing thread here that’s had over 100 votes:

You can add yours if you want. I don’t know if it’s on Asana’s current roadmap, but I imagine they’ll add it eventually.

@Mark_Spencer, Did you notice the faint right arrow at the far right of the task’s entry in the tasks list? It’s not perfect, but if a task has at least one subtask, a description, or attachment, it will appear. If it has none of those, it will not show. So it’s an imperfect indicator for you (but maybe better than nothing!) in that you can only be confident there are no subtasks if also there is no description or attachment.

Additionally, I discovered there’s a bug in Asana if you remove the last subtask it fails to clear the arrow for an otherwise-empty task. But if you add a few characters of description and remove them, it does then clear the arrow! I just reported it to Support.

Larry Berger
Asana2Go & Trilogi Software: Asana Consulting

Thanks Mark. It is a pain right now. I’ll go ahead and vote on that.

Thanks Larry. Yeah, I’d noticed that but as you say it indicates sub-tasks or descriptions or comments …

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FYI my company has built an Asana-based app which solves this problem: it allows you to see and manage your tasks and subtasks in an outline tree. (It also allows you to work with your Asana data offline, among many other features.)

We’re looking for early beta testers; please visit GetTreesana.com to sign up if you’re interested.

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Hi
Does anyone know if I can use advanced search to find out which tasks have subtasks and which tasks have no subtasks (or no incomplete subtasks)? Or a workaround to easily see whether a task has a subtask or not without having to open the side pane and scroll through each task?

Thanks

Hi @Monique_Lay :wave:t3:We already have a thread on this topic, so I’ve gone ahead and merged your post with it; I’d recommend having a look at the tips above!

@Monique_Lay
An easy way to do this is to create a tag called “Subtasks.” Simply add the tag to any task that has subtasks and you will see it show up everywhere. Maybe add this process to your Asana Conventions document so everyone will do it throughout your organization?

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