Why are subtasks so broken?

English Forum Tips and Tricks
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Why is organizing subtasks so broken?

Why am I unable to drag subtasks up from the details page to their own top-level tasks?

Why can’t I drag top-level tasks that I was creating in rapid succession down into the details pane of another task, or just dropped on top of another task to make it a subtask?

Why do my subtasks randomly redundantly appear at the top level?

Why do some screens arbitrarily not display subtasks when the UI could clearly support it? Why am I going in and out of details panes?

This software was originally inspired by Google Tasks, and yet lacks some of it’s most basic and intuitive functionality. The only reason I don’t continue using that product is the inability to share lists (Google Tasks) WITH subtasks (Google Spaces).

It’s extremely common for ideas and projects to evolve and so should their organizational structure. The inconvenient number of interactions it takes to move subtasks and reorganize projects is really frustrating and I feel like the original iterations of Asana used to be much more simplistic and streamlined in that they allow simple dragging and dropping much like the uber-versatile Workflowy project (which only really lacks calendar integration to be the best). Memorizing keyboard shortcuts may seem really great to all the employees and power-forum users but most everyday people I try to get onboarded do not have the time to memorize all the shortcuts which are inconsistently hinted throughout the UI.

I’ve cast my feature votes and submitted feedback through the UI but this is like one of the fundamental use-cases of the software and I don’t get how it somehow regressed in function from one it once used to be.

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I believe subtasks where initially created to cover a very small and limited use case (store steps to take as the assignee) and it blew out of proportion when everyone started to use them in a lot of different ways.

That being said, as someone who used asana for the past 10 years, I can attest to the fact that subtasks are slowly getting better with new features around them every year!

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As you’ve noted, there are Product Feedback items for specific requests around subtasks. Since this one isn’t for a specific feature change, I moved it to the Tips and Tricks forum section.

That being said, I don’t mean this to diminish your comments regarding subtasks, which I largely agree with. :slight_smile:

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One more thing to add is that subtasks should respect the “Enable compact mode”, or said another way – they should inherit the spacing from the main tasks list. It’s also relegated sub-tasks to an obvious product after-thought.