Work-arounds for repeating task with dependencies

[TheAnswerLady]

I see several similar questions about this in the Forum but no answers about how teams are working around this today.

We have a report task that is due every Friday. The report task has 3 subtasks which must be completed before the top-level report task can be marked as complete.

I can create a Task Template for the task (and subtasks) but it doesn’t update the dates OR I can create a Repeating Task which then adds duplicates of the subtasks every week. How are you working around this?

[lpb]

One solution is as follows.

One-time setup:

• Create a weekly recurring task for Mondays: "Create Friday report task from task template
• Create task template as shown below:
  
  

Not shown: Dependencies among the subtasks

Weekly:

• When the “Create Friday report task…” is due, create the task from the task template

Thanks,

Larry

[TheAnswerLady]

Thank you for the quick response! We tried to do something like this but the challenge is that the due date is based on the day the task is created. So, for example, if I create this task today (Wednesday) it will be due on Sunday and the subtasks will be due on different days (Step 1, due Thursday, Step 2 due on Friday, Step 3 due on Saturday). If I create the task and then manually adjust the due date on Create Friday Report the subtasks don’t automatically adjust themselves.

We have just been duplicating the Create Friday Report task which maintains the dependencies and then manually updating the dates, which seems to be about the same result. Is that right or did I miss something?

[lpb]

Of course, you should do whatever you find easiest.

But keep in mind that with my solution:

1. If you honor the request of the recurring task on Mondays, then there are never any dates to change, and
2. If for any reason you can’t follow that and you must create a task on another day, it’s simple to update all the dates at once as follows. For example, I used the task template today, Wednesday, so the Friday report was created for Sunday, and the subtasks relative to that. All I have to do to fix that is:

• Click the date field to show this dialog, then click the blue Update button without changing the date below:
  
  

• Then change the date after reaching this dialog. I changed it to this Friday and all the subtasks are shown with their new dates; then click Save: