Subtask Sections (aka Subsections) - The Hidden Story

[Kristen_Corl]

I’m so excited to discover this functionality! I think at the moment, all of my subtask-generating automations add the subtasks sequentially into the list. Do you know: when adding subtasks to a Task via an automation, is it possible to add the automatically added subtasks to an existing subtask section?

Example of the steps I’d like it to do:
Task 1 sits in an ‘Email’ project and an ‘Issue’ project.
1 Email>Section 1>Automation adds 3 subtasks with subtask section header “Email Campaign”
2 Issue>Section 1>Automation adds 1 subtask with subtask section header “Issue Updates”
3 Email>Section 2>Automation adds 2 subtasks to the subtask section “Email Campaign”

Hopefully, that’s descriptive enough to make sense? Here’s a screenshot of what it might look like before hitting step 3 above, with an arrow of where I’d want to program the two new subtasks to appear.

[lpb]

Sorry, @Kristen_Corl, I don’t believe you’ll be able to do this. You can only set the order among a batch of subsections/subtasks you specify to be added as a unit together.

[Jeremy_Long]

This would be incredibly useful!

[Arthur_BEGOU]

@lpb
A completely useless glitch I’ve discovered:
Subsections are actually subtasks, and can be assigned, plus all the regular subtasks capabilities.

This is how you can retrieve the link and access the subsection:
(select and copy/paste the subsection with a subtask)

(We never know if that can get handy )

[lpb]

Interesting find, @Arthur_BEGOU!

I knew they were just subtasks (“Subtask Separators” actually) but your trick is new to me and I’ll await the exciting day when one of us comes up with a use for this hack!!

[AlexisH]

Has the subtask sections feature been removed? I tried “Tab” + N today in a subtask area, and it would only allow me to create a new section outside my task. I’m going to be really sad if this feature was removed, I was really looking forward to it…

[lpb]

I was able to create a subtask section just now so long as my cursor was in an existing subtask within the task detail pane.

If my cursor was in the Description area, it created a regular Section. (This used to create a subtask section.)

In the past few months there have been reports of intermittent bugs where even if the cursor was in the subtasks area it created a section mistakenly–just sometimes.

I’ve not heard about the potential change above, nor a potential bug fix.

Thanks,

Larry

[AlexisH]

Hi Larry,

Thanks for the confirmation! I definitely have a bug on my side.

After some trial and error, I finally got it to work by:

1. Creating a new subtask
2. Hitting “Tab” + N
3. (This would create a “shadow” subtask and a new section area)
4. Going back into the subtask and putting my cursor on the “shadow” (blank) subtask
5. Then hitting “Tab” + N again

Once I created the first subtask section, I didn’t have to repeat the process over to create more subtask sections. After that it worked like normal.

Posting so others can see that there is a bug, and how I got it to work. Thanks!

[lpb]

Great, @AlexisH; thanks for posting.

I thought there was another topic covering this bug but I failed to find it after several minutes of searching.

Perhaps you want to report to Support; if so, use this temporary procedure:

Try the new Asana Help Center!

Hi everyone, it looks like the length of the thread is causing some confusion, so I’ll close this topic and highlight the workaround currently in place to make things clearer. Some users are currently running into an authentication error when trying to log into our new Help Center. We are actively working on this and we’ll let you know once a fix is in place. In the meantime, please kindly use these workaround solutions to get in touch with Support: Option 1: Access our Help Center in an inc…

Thanks,

Larry

[Laura_Gardner1]

This isn’t working for me unfortunately I hope they fix the bug soon as I use this feature every day.

[Arthur_BEGOU]

Hey @lpb

Today, something looks very wrong with subsections.
I can’t create anymore… They are now just tasks called “New section”
Same in all my environments, and same with the browser or the app.

I hope this is just a bug ‎‎‎‏‏‎
I hope Asana is not killing that awesome “hidden” feature (because, I think, a lot of people would be disappointed…)

[Lukas_Kerecz]

can confirm this. it is not working anymore! I already doubted myself

[lpb]

Everyone, see this topic for update; a fix is currently being worked on:

Tab+N Behavior is Inconsistent

Hi everyone, apologies for the trouble. While this thread dates back to August and the original inconsistencies were flagged to our Developers, it looks like the recent reports from the past couple of days point to a new bug. Our Developers have already been informed and are currently working on a solution. I’ll keep you updated with more information or an ETA on the fix as soon as I have it!

Thanks,

Larry

[Lukas_Kerecz]

Works again for me in our asana environment

[lpb]

Great! I just updated the other related thread mentioning your post. Thanks!

[Arthur_BEGOU]

Works for me too, what a relief

[Nicole_Pieper]

My subtasks are created but they are not underlined? I’d like them to be. Does anyone know how to fix this?

[lpb]

Welcome, @Nicole_Pieper,

In an early visual design, Asana used an underline to display Subtask Sections but no longer does. I’m afraid you can’t configure this.

Thanks,

Larry