Easier way to set sub-task dependencies

It would be fantastic if there was an easier way to make subtasks dependent on one another. In timeline, you can drag the dots to connect two tasks, but in subtasks, you have to go into the subtask, click dependency, then try to find the other subtask you want in the dropdown (and sometimes the logical one doesn’t show up first, or at all), so if that happens, you have to go to the previous subtask, copy that link, then go into the other one and paste the link into the dependency section. It’s all quite a lot of work and time. We use subtasks so much in my company, so I’d LOVE it if there was a way to simply do a drag to add a dependency rather than having to go into every single subtask to set it.


This is a common situation, when users discover subtasks, they all rush in and start using them, usually too much. And they quickly realize subtasks don’t work the way they expected them to work :confused:
Maybe in your case you can setup a task template with dependencies between subtasks, and use the task templates? (not sure the depdendencies work though)

Oh we do use template tasks with the sub task dependencies already set up. But those moments when it’s something new, or when I have a one-off adjustment to the workflow can actually take a surprising amount of time to reset the dependencies.

I would LOVE to get away from using subtasks and use tasks instead, but that makes it really difficult to see what tasks relate to each other when it’s all in a big list, and it makes a project much messier and more difficult to navigate. Pros and cons of both ways I guess.

I am going to play y @Julien_RENAUD card here. He was part of a company that forbid subtasks. How did you do Julien? For example, let’s say a blog post. You need to research, write, proofread, publish. How did you put that into Asana?

Our blog workflow has quite a few more steps. lol Brief and assign, 1st draft due, 1st draft review, revisions, 2nd review, 2nd revisions (if needed), proofread, final approval, production, distribution. :laughing: I tried NOT using subtasks once, but it required renaming every single step with the blog title or keywords so that people know what piece it was referring to. And there was no way to template that method. The subtasks are so much quicker. But I think there are other projects we have that don’t really need to be subtask based, so I’m absolutely open to ideas so I can share with my teams.

Hi @Wendy_Allen & @Bastien_Siebman

As Bastien said, we tried avoiding using subtasks, except for one use case: you are the owner of the task, and you use subtasks as for a checklist, and you don’t assign them to anyone (because according to me confusion starts once a subtask is assigned).

We always try to use sections and custom fields instead. A custom field was used to show the progress for instance (draft, review, …).

1 Like