Why subtasks don't appear in your Project Calendar

If you add sub - tasks to the project then they show up multiple times. Super confusing. Why would you want to create subtasks that don’t show up in a calendar? This doesn’t make sense to me at all.

Kind of interesting you have to create a report to use the tool. I would suggest the product analytics team look into how many reports are created with no changes. I would assume this would show how many people want to use subtasks in their calendar.

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I stumbled accross this topic some days ago and accepted this is not yet supported.
However, for people like me, who did not know “Sections” exist: you can add Sections to your project in which you can subdivide your tasks. This works fine if you only have 1 level of subtasks.
Advantages for me:

  • Clear overview in project task list
  • Instagantt supports sections
  • The “Project” grouping in “My tasks” works as expected (while it does not for subtasks, subtasks are shown as having no project)

You can add Sections by hovering over the “Add task” button, waiting for the “Add Section” button to appear and then (obviously :)) click that button. Not sure why this button is somewhat hidden.

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It seems like the best option would be to just give your users the option to turn subtasks in the calendar off if they want to. Google Calendar’s multi-calendar interface is a perfect example. Just a tickbox.

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oh, please let this happen.

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For those of you who want this functionality, instagantt will do it.
A shame I still have to keep that license active with Timeline active, but timeline gives me a very small view of total tasks since I like subdividing.

Just to recap all the implications of this design, none of which make sense:

  • my tasks don’t show group subtasks under their project
  • subtasks don’t appear on a project calendar
  • search results don’t show project name for subtask results, making subtask names devoid of context

There are two workarounds:

  1. Manually add each subtasks to the parent project
  2. use tags with project names (does not address the second issue above)

The only workaround to any of these is for the third issue, and that involves creating a new tag for each project and applying it to every subtask.

BTW, according to this thread, as of Jan 10 the Asana team are working on addressing this, presumably by making subtasks inherit projects automatically.

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As of right now, subtasks do NOT show up on the calendar for the board they are on. They show up on the entire group calendar without color coding, but they are not included on the board calendar and aren’t exported with the outlook/gmail etc. calendars. Please fix immediately!!!

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Hi @Jax_Gitzes; in order for subtasks to show on your Calendar, you must manually associate them to their parent task project. You can easily do so by accessing the subtask, using the “Tab+P” shortcut to open the project field, and enter the project name into this field.

As soon as your subtasks will be associated to their parent task project, you will see them in your calendar!

We already have a thread on this topic in the Forum, so iv’e gone ahead and merged your post with the main thread to avoid having too many duplicates in the Forum; hope thats ok!

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Is there any way an Asana member can do an announcement post about how to show Subtasks in your Calendar/List Views? I’m seeing soo many posts, comments and questions and not all of them have been provided with this solution.

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  • 1 for this. For someone who uses calendars to organise most things this is beyond painful. Please think about implementing this at least as an option and allowing subtasks to be exported to Google Calender as well.

Many thanks

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I’ve done this, however upon associating it with the parent task project, it shows in the project’s list view outside of the primary task it’s associated with. This feels redundant is it already exists as a subtask in the primary task it’s housed in. Am I doing something wrong/can displaying twice be avoided?

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I’ve pushed everything to the bottom under a section that says “Ignore everything below this section” but it’s a clumsy fix

As others have stated, this is a very strange workaround that puts the subtask in two places at once while making it a subtask that is now a parent tasks.
A checkbox to show subtask would be a good solution. An even better addition would allow having the main task reflect the next subtasks due date. Then I could see upcoming subtask due dates in the list view as well.

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I don’t understand the logic of why subtasks show up in a team or workspace calendar by default but not in the project calendar. So frustrating. The workaround (adding subtasks to the main project) also doesn’t make sense. If I wanted the subtask to show up in the main list, I would’ve made it a regular task.

Asana I want to love you but you make it hard sometimes!

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This is a critical need for us. The way I am using it, I have to hunt around my many projects to see what is due and that is not working. Give us the option to option to see a universal dated list of work due all the way down to the sub tasks.

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Would love and update on this its a major flaw for us.
I use a project to house a campaign and tasks as deliverables.
Subtasks are stages in the delivery.
My Calendar currently just shows date ranges for deliverables (tasks).
Not very helpful

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This is an enormous missing feature–the calendar view in a project is functionally useless. I don’t care, because I have a list brain and not a calendar brain, but my calendar-focused boss is not at all supported by this behavior. Apparently Asana devs aren’t calendar fans either, because this design decision completely torpedoes the value of the project calendar view.

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It seems clear that posting on this here isn’t impacting the problem - but this is another vote for having a simple toggle to have sub-tasks in the calendar and timeline. I work constantly with soft and hard deadlines. Few tasks can have a single simple deadline and this system for working around it is simply far too prone to human error.

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The duplication of subtasks on the board make the Community Forum Manager’s instructions totally unworkable. I am looking to get started on Asana but have to re-evaluate because of this. If there has been a solution, I would love to hear about it. Thank you.

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** I created a column at the end of each board to associate all subtasks with and i just ignore the column. A little ridiculous, but seems to be functional.