Hi all,
Firstly, apologies if I am creating a duplicate topic. I searched around the community forum and wasn’t able to find an answer to my question, nor anyone asking the question, for that matter.
We have a scenario where some parent tasks and corresponding subtasks have the same custom field applied to them. In theory, the custom field on the parent task and corresponding subtask should always contain matching numeric data (but are susceptible to human error causing misalignment as the data is manually entered). The custom field must be available on both the parent task and corresponding subtask, because in some instances, collaborators might only have permission to view the subtask and not the task.
Is there a way to have a subtask’s custom field data reflect the parent task’s custom field data, without manually entering in the information, if they both have that particular custom field applied to them?
I’m looking to improve both accuracy and efficiency in our Asana flow as we will have countless subtasks at scale.
As an example: if I add an id field to my parent task and this particular task’s id is "1", can I have corresponding subtask’s id fields automatically populate to "1" if they have an id field?
Thanks in advance!
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Hi @anon83648423 and thank you for reaching out!
At this time, subtasks inherit the custom fields of their parent task’s project(s) but I’m afraid there isn’t a built feature to have a subtask’s custom field data to automatically reflect the parent task’s custom field data.
One workaround for this, could be to multi-select the task and its subtasks and edit the custom field in bulk from the list view. Please see screenshots attached:
I hope this helps in the meantime Daniel! Please let me know if you have any follow-up question!
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Hi @Natalia,
Thank you for this.
This workaround is an awesome time saver. Not exactly what I was after, but close enough that I’m a happy boy. Thank you very much.
Cheers,
Daniel Maddison
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Have there been any updates to this capability? It would be a major time save for the fields to be able to auto-populate fields (and eliminate the need for manual entry) based on the parent task.
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Hi @anon12499563,
Our Flowsana integration has some capabilities in this area in its Variable Substitution feature which you can read about here. In particular, note the part about using {parent.[fieldname]} to pull data from a parent task into a subtask.
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This is a game changer! Thanks for sharing Phil!
This is going to free up so much of my team’s time when we don’t have to manually enter the same info into the custom fields for subtasks!
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Hey, unfortunately I can’t use Flowsana and inheriting data from parent tasks to subtasks is a lot of manual effort. So, it would be amazing if this gets to be a general feature in Asana.
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Is it possible to change the priority of sub-tasks automatically when I change the priority of the main task instead of changing it manually for each subtask?.
Hello @PANUGANTI_RAVINDER I have merged your post into an existing feedback request thread The ability for custom fields to inherit parent task data!?. Don’t forget to upvote there.
And here are some tips around custom fields in subtasks: Quick tip: Show some subtasks' hidden custom fields
Hey @Phil_Seeman Is this function limited to specific custom field types? Hoping to do it with a single select custom field but can’t seem to figure it out. Thanks!
While the source custom field in the parent task can be a single-select field type, the target custom field in the subtask does currently need to be a text type field (because you need to be able to type in the variable substitution string and so you need a text field to be able to type that into).
I use custom fields to organize projects step by step, and since you cant add multiple assignees to one task, i had to create subtasks to add each member of my team.
but the problem is, when the project is in step 1, I set my custom field to step 1 and i want everyone to see that the project is in the step 1, but the custom field wont sync through all the subtasks allowing everyone to know what step the project is.
I cant keep changing the custom field to each subtask manually one by one, thats a problem.
Welcome to the Asana Community Forum @Lucas_Souza1!
I have merged your post into an existing feedback request thread. Don’t forget to leave your vote at the top of the thread.
Hi Katie, I’m hoping to achieve similar action here - could you help me understand how you automated pulling all custom fields from a parent task to a subtask using flowsana?
Hi Daniel!
I set up Flowsana workflows so that when a task is added to a board as a subtask from a parent task and the parent task has a custom field set to “x” the custom field is set to the same by adding brackets and then “parent”.“whatever you want the field set to” {parent.X}
All custom fields have to be text fields however, drop-downs and other field types do not work with this option.
This is an example of what the workflow is set up like:
If a task is added to project ‘Digital SEO Builds/Tasks’, then set its custom field ‘AM’ to a value of ‘{parent.AM}’.
I hope that makes sense! Let me know if you have any other questions!
Thanks!
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We’ve seen that in Asana, the subtasks do not inherit the parent task. There are some custom fields which need to apply to both the parent task and their subtasks. What is the quickest way to do this? Are there any add-ins?
Hello @anon54415044 ,
I have merged your post into an existing feedback request thread. Don’t forget to upvote there. You can find some workarounds in this thread as well.
Newbie here 
Here is the workaround that I did to make the parent inherit the parent custom field, here is the step:
- Duplicate the parent task, then make it a “Test parent task”
- It will inherit all the custom fields details, then click “Convert to” and make it the subtask of of your original parent task
- Double check if all the custom field inherits all the details.
I hope this help and make sense
FYI for @Katie_Toney and others here,
Flowsana now has a new rule action that lets you set a subtask’s Due Date, or any custom date field in the subtask, based on the parent’s Due Date, or on any other date field in the parent task:
See this post for more info.
I’m curious if this will be on the roadmap at any time? It would really help clear up Rules in projects. Currently I have rules set in an Audit Board where if X service is selected in an Asana Form submission it will populate a subtask under the submission task for someone to complete an audit on X service. However there are some nuances, such as if in the form they select “Expedited” it will get assigned to a different person than a regular audit. I can get around this by having the subtask have the matching “expedited” field while creating the rule (example: if task added to board and task has expedited → create subtask (and add the field to the actual “template” subtask during this part)), but then I would have to create a separate one that will have the “regular” service on it, essentially eating 2 Rules in the board. And if you have more than 25 service options…you know where I’m going with this 
But if there was an option during setup to have subtasks inherit the parent task fields then I could set a Rule in a separate board that would delegate out those tasks, and save more room for rules in the main board.
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