Tags, Tasks, and Subtasks

#1

I am organizing our program activities using Asana in the board view. A few issues seem to be happening:

  1. When I apply a tag to a subtask, it seems to duplicate that subtask as a task in the board.
  2. Even if I create a subtask under a parent task, it shows up in My Tasks as having no project assigned. Then if I assign it back to the project, it creates a duplicate of the subtask as a parent task in the board.

In both cases, if I try to delete the duplicate, it deletes the original subtask too.

Any advice?

Thanks!
Phoebe

#2

Hi @Phoebe_Goldberg,

(That is one beautiful dog, BTW.)

Yes, subtasks have some behaviors that can be a little, shall we say, counter-intuitive. The first thing I would recommend is that you carefully read this help topic, especially the Subtask & Project Association section:

Bottom line is:

  • Subtasks by default don’t inherit and thus aren’t attached to the project of their parent.
  • When you DO attach a subtask to a project, it appears in the main task list/board for that project, right alongside top-level tasks. In other words, those aren’t duplicates you’re seeing; those ARE the actual subtasks, just being displayed in the project.

As to your specific items:

Right - this goes back to the fact that by default, subtasks are not attached to their parent’s project (or any project for that matter).

As discussed above, it’s not a duplicate, it IS the same subtask.

This one I can’t explain and doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure you’re adding a tag to the subtask and not adding it to the project?

#3

Thanks Phil! I appreciate the quick help. I think we’ll gradually move to not using subtasks, instead setting up more columns with their own tasks.