We Heard You Like Tasks, So We Put Some Subtasks in Your Tasks
by Jackie Bavaro
October 9th, 2012
At Asana, we’re passionate about tasks. Indeed, we’ve built our company on the notion that tasks lie at the foundation of collaborative work. It is by breaking down ambitious goals into component parts and then distributing each one to the team member most qualified to execute it that collectives of like-minded people are able to do great things. Asana’s magic rests in its ability to make this process effortless, enabling teams to capture and distribute tasks at the speed of thought.
For the last handful of months, we’ve been testing out subtasks. Our version of subtasks takes the speed, power and flexibility that are at the core of Asana and bumps them up a couple of notches. Today, we feel that they’re ready and are launching them to you.
Introducing Subtasks
Subtasks let you specify your tasks to the level of granularity that you want. In Asana, they aren’t just a simple checklist – each Subtask is a real Asana task with an assignee, due date, and its own comment thread (yes, even its own Subtasks).
Here are three of our favorite ways to use Subtasks:
Break a task down into individual steps
The most basic way to use Subtasks is to create subtasks for each of the individual steps in a task.
Many times when we find ourselves procrastinating on a task, it’s because we don’t have a clear idea of what to do next. Once we write down the small, actionable steps, the task usually doesn’t look as intimidating.
Another benefit is that you can mark the subtasks complete as you do them so you can see the progress you’re making along the way.
Assign different parts of a task to each person
We frequently hear people asking “How can I assign a task to multiple people?” With Subtasks, you can identify the parts of a task each person has responsibility for, and assign those subtasks to their respective owners. This enables each person to see the task in their “My Tasks” view, while still keeping the accountability for each action with a single person.
Since each of the subtasks is a real task, you can have notes or a discussion on them, with just the people who care about that subtask.
Ask for feedback or ask a direct question
We usually ask questions in the task comments, but sometime a teammate needs an extra nudge. If you want to make sure that someone sees & answers your question, you can create a subtask and assign it to them. You can also do this to give yourself reminders to follow up on tasks.
These are just three possible ways to use Subtasks, but the range of possibilities is huge. We hope you love Subtasks as much as we do.
AWESOME! I’m so excited about this feature…it is one of the features I’ve been longing for!
Subtasks don’t print. Great feature, but what if you need to print out a report?
Subtasks not showing up in the print view is an issue. We print to PDF each completed project for archiving purposes (since there is no way to export anything) and, currently, subtasks are simply lost. As thrilled as I was that subtasks were finally available, I can’t use this feature on most of my projects.
Agree with the other Dave Mackey!
;-)
Sub-tasks is a big enhancement. Well done.
Keep them coming Asana!
This capability is essential to meaningful use of the product.
I will try it soon…
Ah! is this article ONLY about the mobile version?
This is great, and I thoroughly enjoyed the post title as well.
You’ve done it again, Asana! Keep up the good work. It just keeps getting better and better!
quite good..
but still, we need offline-able desktop version.!
+1
I strongly second this motion. I am online 90% of the time, but in that 10%, the mobile app simply doesn’t cut it.
+10 for the offline-able desktop version
+10000 for the offline-able mobile app
PS: But still your work is amazing.Merci
Love the new functionality – but also totally agree that a good off line version would make it so much easier…
+1
+1
Strongly agree!
I don’t really see the point of having an offline version. Asana, collaborators, tasks, all have something in common: they work online.
You can say that a desktop version could “sync” with online version, but I think the Asana team is doing a tremendous job with this product, and I couldn’t ask for more. They just surprise me every feature release.
P.S.: Nowadays, we use online services for everything, even communicating with other parts of the team. We don’t email offline, we don’t set calendar offline, we simply cannot collaborate offline.
True, besides that, adding offline support would imply a lot of synchronization logic, conflict handling and so on, better invest on other features :)
Martin–
I’d love an offline version because I am frequently on airplanes. Especially on an international flight it is hard to be without my to do list. I might have 10-11 hours on a flight during which I work the whole time. I have to write a bunch of notes of what to do when I land–mark this as complete, assign this to someone else, etc. Some of that I can do via offline email that when sent does what I need. Some I can’t.
I agree, though, the Asana team is doing great at putting out new features. But, I’m in the camp that needs an offline version before I can use Asana exclusively.
Offline functionality would help towards a solid mobile app.
I want the offline version of asana because I have a laptop and I do work on an airplane where I don’t have access to the internet. Then, when I get back to the internet, I want it all to sync up.
I go camping and use my computer in places that do not have the internet. I want to capture my actions and check them off when I get a chance to fit them in.
I went to Japan last year to help with the tsunami clean-up. I used Asana to keep track of things, but I was often offline and unable to connect.
I do agree that this complicates the tool, but my reality is not that I am connected to the internet 100% of the time.
If you ALWAYS have access to the internet, great. I do not.
Well said. I agree.
Online is needed for collaboration, but what about execution? It’s simply unacceptable that when I don’t have a connection I can’t access my task list.
+1000 on that – about to jump on a plane and realising I have to do the painful task of screenshotting or printing every project so that I can do meaningful work in the next 12 hours. Our whole team really likes Asana (now that Subtasks are working well) except for not being able to work when disconnected – which one or other of us usually is.
I came here to say the same thing. Evernote is still king until we get offline versions. LTE mitigates the problem somewhat however you still have to make a note when on the train and underground before adding it to asana.
agreed
+1000 on both!!!
Thanks for the good work.
+1 for a offline android/desktop app
I’m eager to try your sub-tasks. Keep up the good work and keep on improving!
Yo dawg we heard you like tasks so we put some subtasks in your tasks so that you can plan while you plan!
+1 internets to you
wow! i just asked for this yesterday. you guys are great!
I read this article many times & cannot find HOW to create subtasks, I feel like an idiot
It only says;
The most basic way to use Subtasks is to create subtasks for …
Huh: The way to create them is to create them?
Does someone know how?
Me too. Tells us how first and then show us ideas on how to use new features would save us slower types a lot of time.
Thanks!
I have found two ways to create subtasks:
1. Click the “Task Actions” downward-pointing arrow (to the right of the “Mark Complete” box at the top of a task), and click “Add Subtask”.
or
2. Underneath where it lists the projects the task is associated with, click “Subtasks” (next to the “Due Date”/”Tags”/”Attach a File” options).
However, I have not figured out how to make an existing task be a subtask of another existing task (or of a new task). Asana folks, how do I do that?
+1 to add logic for being able to make an existing task a subtask of another task.
Another +1
Just figured this out:
– Click on the task you want to make the parent
– Click on the subtasks button to expand a subtasks list
– Drag task from the main list (center column) to the subtask list (right column)
– Tasks is moved from main list to subtask list (thus becomes a subtask of an existing task)
Caveat empor… I have not tested nested tasks or anything else to make sure this moves everything… but it moves the one task fine.
Great! You guys rock!
Very cool… I don’t see subtasks listed in the printout – is this WIP?
AWESOME
Asana killing the project management game! Nice work
Thank you! This solves an issue we were creating a crappy work around for.
Great news! But they’re hidden most of the time. They really should be shown, indented, under the parent tasks in the task list (center column) as well.
+1
Agreed. But each layer of subtasks should be collapsed by default, expandable with a click. Otherwise they would clutter the main list. This method allows visibility on demand, as needed.
+1
I totally agree.
I’m currently looking for a project management solution, and this is preventing me jumping into Asana (as well as the visually homogeneous interface that makes it difficult to quickly identify the sections etc – a dash of colour would seriously help)
Agreed re indenting subtasks as PM software does – this would also allow the details pane to always work the same way whether you’re looking at a master or any sub-task.
It would also be nice if we could drag existing tasks to become subtasks of another. If there’s a way to do this already I can’t figure it out.
The other pieces which would enable basic PM functionality – without over-complicating the overall experience – are task/subtask duration and predecessor relationships between tasks. Those two things alone would address 90% of everyday PM needs out there – and probably get you a big part of the market that today are buying expensive products like MS Project while only needing basic project planning.
Thanks again for an awesome tool ! We love using this.
+1 for turning existing tasks into subtasks. This is the first thing I tried to do.
+1 to visible (indented) subtasks, and draggable tasks (to make a task a subtask or vice versa).
Agreed. Still not as useful as it could be.
How do you create a sub-task of a sub-task?
I second the moving subtasks to different tasks part.
Have been using subtasks for a while, and we stopped because of this issue (you can’t see from the listing if a task has subtasks). Can get quite confusing.
Agreed! Very difficult to use.
Agreed! It would also be nice if Asana were to add some voting buttons for comments on their site :0)
Yes, child tasks could slide down (expand) under the main task, when I click on the main task, and collapse when I move to another main (parent) task.
OR main tasks could have at least some icon indicating that this task has subtasks, so that it would be harder to dismiss them.
Anyway, Thx Asana! That’s a lot better!
This is pure gold folks! A subtask icon and the ability to unfold subtasks with a keyboard shortcut would make it perfect.
I completely agree! I want to love the subtasks, but it’s confusing because you can’t easily see which tasks have subtasks. It would be wonderful to have the ability to collapse and expand the list,
Also, it would be fantastic to be able to batch add subtasks the same way you can batch add tags, etc (because we have many tasks that require the same steps over and over again to complete).
Agreed. Like saving [and sharing w/ the Asana community] task list templates.
+1
+1!
+1
+2
+1,000,000 to this request!!!!
+1
+++ Also keyboard shortcuts so you can quickly sketch out the task AND all it’s subtasks in the task-list pane.
Also, when do you NOT want to see the notes of the parent task when you’re working in the subtask? The UI where bringing up the subtask makes the parent task go away is… sub-optimal.
+1. It can get really confusing. Can’t possibly know if a task has subtasks. You guys should refer to workflowy for multiple-level lists awesomeness.
Integration of Workflowy is the answer. There is a huge opportunity for a merger of great minds and products. Perhaps this has been discussed elsewhere, if not it should move to the top of the task list:-}
Agree completely. The challenge for managers is not knowing that subtasks are there without clicking on every task. The collapsed list indented would be helpful. Even an indicator / icon of some sort is a start.
+1!
+1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
very important addition – i was just about to write a comment with the exact same request.
It is especially annoying that co-workers that were only assigned to a sub-task get those listed under “no projects” in their own task list.
Adding them to the project manually does not really help either because you can’t identify them as subtasks easily
YES. Please please PLEASE, make subtasks visible in the center pane so I can view all my tasks/subtasks at once.
+1 for this. It’s especially difficult (and very easy to miss) the comments of subtasks.
This is my biggest gripe. I use asana with about 20 people and I need to get a quick view of the main tasks of each project and sub tasks during meeting reviews. If I cant get this quick view its extremely hard, if not impossible, to use asan as a management tool for department projects.
The current subtasks are hidden inside the main task and when viewing it together we cant see the subtasks. you really need to have subtasks that indent and then sub sub tasks – 3 layers that can collaps.
As our projects grow my team is getting a bit frustrated and they are trying to pull us to use smart sheet in order to track the progress flow better. It gives a clear view of the overall project. We have spent a lot of time learning how to use ASANA, I would like to keep them here.
Agreed, hence why I have hesitated to use Asana for so long. I did not like the chore of clicking away until I get to what I need. I was using Trello because you can get a super fast view of everything. Same with Evernote. And I know that they are not the same thing, but they can be used for similar purposes.
Really hoping this is addressed. Agreeing with everyone else on the indenting. Hoping also for a feature that shows percentage complete next to parent task. For example, if four out of five subtasks are completed for “Make Video”, then the parent task “Make Video” should have next to it, “80%”
I’m hoping they add this too.
You guys are the best! Really, the implementation is amazingly brilliant (I only wish I could use shortcuts for subtasks, trying to add an the assignee is not working or I don’t know how to do it) .
Thanks for listening!
Tab-S takes you to a subtask, and from there you can tab-M to “assign to me” or tab-A to assign the subtask directly to someone else. Enjoy!
It would be really useful to have ‘Tab’ add a subtask instead of Tab-S.
As Asana is designed to enable easy entry of tasks(including sub-tasks) first and details(notes) later, I feel Tab is a more natural keyboard shortcut for subtasks. Almost all other exceptional task managers like Omnifocus support this keyboard flow.
In a sense, the Tab key request is the same as the indent SubTasks under Tasks request above. If subtasks were indented under tasks, Tab would be the natural key for adding subtasks. Since they are not yet, it might seem like sub-tasks are secondary to adding Notes. I strongly believe Sub-Tasks are first class citizens just like Tasks.
Please consider switching the shortcuts for Notes and SubTasks.
Asana is becoming an increasingly essential application. Good work, continue to surprise us.
Great job! Definitely need this for my more personal tasks.
Now just for a better mobile application and offline tasks
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you! I was using notes, which works fine, just this is much better. I use this every day and love every minute of it.
I hate to be “that guy” but I’d still love to see a “global” dashboard with all tasks across all workspaces. Just a thought :)
+1
+1
+1
+1
+1
+1
+1
+1 for global tasks
+1
+1
+1
+1 from me too
+1
+1
+1 = need Android please.
+∞
AWESOME!
I think the thing I love about this the most is that subtasks can have subtasks and they are all very elegantly displayed and organized!
I can only dream about the wonderful byzantine and bureaucratic layers of tasks and subtasks that can created for complex situations. While it seems like a simple feature addition, it really shifts gears into powerhouse speed for Asana. Well done!
Awesome feature!
Great!! I tested it out and my feedback is that I find it tedious that the subtasks don’t automatically adopt the same project name as the parent task. That’s my request!
And I agree with Josh’s comment above – the global dashboard would be so good to have!
Agree with Mel. Great feature but could be improved by automatically adopting the same project and tags as the parent task.
I agree with Mel. Subtasks should automatically adopt their parent task’s project.
Agree with Mel that subtasks should automatically adopt their parent task’s project. And I think also tags and due date should be picked from parent. User can change if he/she wants to but maybe no need to change and saves time this way.
I DISagree with Mel. It could be nice, but it should not be “carved in stone.” Here’s an example of why not:
We have a product that presents the contents of some databases (also used in other products) to the user. Separate “Projects” might be an overhaul of some data tables and a change to the user interface, which are being done by different teams on different schedules, and which mostly don’t affect each other. BUT, sometimes they DO affect each other, and then the one team needs to synchronize part of their work with the other team. So a sub-task of the database team might be to have the UI team create a way of displaying the new field in the next version of the product. That sub-task “Show French widgets on Polish sprockets page” of the DB team’s “Add French widgets” project would be assigned to a graphics designer as part of the “Version 2 Sprockets UI” project…
Hope that’s clear. I don’t want to discuss proprietary details, obviously, but we have that kind of problem here.
+1 for subtask automatically inheriting parent tasks project links
Have to have this! The entire thing falls apart with out this. I’ve got a team of guys on multiple projects. And My tasks becomes almost useless with out knowing what project a task is a part of.
I agree with this one. It forces me to make extra steps to assign subtasks to the parent tasks’s project. It disrupts the fast data entry flow that attracted me to Asana in the first place.
This is awesome! After having it for some time on one workspace that’s not too active, it’s great to have it on all workspaces. It allows us to break things down and keep them organized much better than previously.
It does feel like it needs a 3rd pane for these though… so you can select several and quickly set a due date, etc. But no matter, still awesome to have.
Looking forward to using this to make my projects a bit simpler, not sure about the the user interface for sub-task comments through.
Good feature, though I still think it’d be cool to implement a visual indicator as you make progress with subtasks so you can easily tell how far along you are with finishing the overall task, similar to Trello’s checklists.
Great job Asana!
Great new feature
AWESOME, Asana is the best!!!
Asana is the best PM management I’ve ever used. Perfect for team work, remote or not… Just AWESOME!
Thank you guys for providing us with such a wonderful tool :))
Love it, thanks for listening!!!
Excelent!
GO Asana, much needed feature.
Great to see this long-overdue feature added. Well done!
Awesome!
Is there a way to convert a task into a subtask (or a subtask to a task)?
No, and this is definitely what is needed next. Need to be able to assign any task, subtask, sub-subtask as a child of any other project, task or subtask (unless it creates a circular reference, of course). This would give us the granularity that we need and flexibility to move tasks to subtasks and also have a task be parts of multiple project structures. The lack of the ability to do this causes us to have to recreate tasks if we need to move them up or down one or more levels.
Not yet, no. But promotion of tasks up and down is something that we’re considering.
Good! We really need this for maintaining projects!
+1 !!
Thanks!
+1 Yes, we need it, too. We have lots of tasks that should have been made as sub-tasks, but were created before the feature was available. Now we would like to organize them without having to create new subtasks and copying over all of the data.
I love ASANA! Now just need an ability to see all my tasks across workspaces and I’d be 100% happy
Love this new feature! Please, please please move the notes below the task details and subtasks. Especially when forwarding an email to Asana, the notes can get quite lengthy. Thanks so much for the continuous improvement!
New? I could swear I’ve been using this feature for the entire time (few weeks) I’ve been using asana.
My suggestion is:
allow subtasks to expand (be shown, indented) below their parent task
+1
+1 for indenting
+1
another hearty thanks for subtasks, and a thumbs up for indenting them!
So glad you finally rolled this out! All my old projects were getting jealous of my new projects.
Thanks Asana :)
Lack of subtasks was the primary reason we were going to start looking for another product. Thanks!
Great news!
Woooo!!! Finally!
Yep, now its so much better! Thank you Asana!
Is there any limitations to add sub-tasks? Can’t we add multiple sub-tasks for single task?
One of the features looking for so long !! Thanks guys !!
Superb!! Thank you very much for this feature, you guys rock!
You people are amazing! These days, I can’t imagine doing something without Asana! Kudos to your efforts!
Great job guys ! Have been waiting for this feature.
Great! Already started to work with it! Keep it up! :-)
Good feature, but the thing that prevents me from using them is that I mostly have repeating tasks (with repeating sub-tasks). Now if I complete the main task, a new task is created, but the sub-tasks remain ‘marked complete’…
Great!
Thx a lot!
It’s good to hear but … why so overcomplicate it? Why not adding subtasks to just tasks? Why in task details? What if I wanted to add subtask to a subtask? Look like others did it – google tasks, todoist – very simple and efficient.
I agree, user should be able to see the ‘tree’ of his tasks without needing to open every single task.
I agree with Maciej Dragan.
Good idea to add subtasks functionality, but it is not usable.
User cannot see structure of “tasks” – “subtasks level 1″ – “subtasks level 2″ – etc.
Next bad thing is logic of checking top task and leaving included tasks unchecked. So user may think that whole task is completed, but included subtasks are not.
Agree, multiple levels of sub-tasks is very important for laying out the tasks for a project, so good start. Being able to see the “tree” and the status of each item, and to easily navigate to any subtask is the only way to make it useful.
I Love the new subtasks!
It’s great feature, but I think the activity of subtasks should be added to their parent’s activity feed.
Yeah! Good JOB! I was waiting for it :)
Thank U Asana team. We have been waiting for that functionality :)
Great start.
Collapsing the subtasks under the main tasks could be a future improvement, leaving the tasks frame in the right place and the information/blog frame too.
As a grafic solution a collapsing view like in excel grouping datas or in MS-project or maybe something even better, would allow to have several sublayers, what is tipical für complex projects.
Great feature, this really helps us move forward! We were using notes and it was getting messy!
One piece of feedback, you should put a screenshot of where the new subtasks button is located, I couldnt find it :-) I read the post 3 times, and didnt know where the feature would show up in the app!
You guys continue to outdo yourselves to make my life easier. Sub-tasks! Fantastic!
I love the comment icon, can we have this for all tasks, please?
Very useful addition. Keep up the good work!
Hi,
It would be better if the middle pane (task list) can show an icon indicating that a particular task has subtasks. This would given a one-glance help.
Additionally, the task can have a completed-count) status like following
———
Task1
Task2 (3/7)
Task3 (0/6)
————
The above middle pane signifies that:
-Task1 has no subtasks
-Task2 has total 7 subtasks, of which 3 are completed.
-Task3 has total 6 subtasks, of which none are completed.
+1
+1
+1. Makes sense.
+1
very good idea!
+1
Great guys!!!
Thank you, this helps us organize our tasks better!!!
I like that. Thank you! Good job!
Finally subtasks, thats a great and out of my view long overdue step :)
Tags are nice but you can’t create tags just to fake subtasks, it does not yield a similar ease of information providing and I was wondering what kind of users asana was targeting as no organization is doing only tiny tasks, suitable for ‘subtask missing’ platforms.
Marc, I totally agree with you. While Asana is making great strides, it seems that “tags” are the foundation of every function… I love the ease of look and feel of Asana, but lack of features are holding us from jumping on board, one was lack of true sub-tasks and a biggie is the Llack of Complete Project Timeline.
Why doesn’t the subtask automatically take on the parent Project name?
Gerat! Thanks allot!!!
Thanks so much! I’ve been asking for this and I am THRILLED that you put it in :))
Great feature. Any news about related tasks? Related tasks, that can have relation type potentially can be more useful then sub tasks alone.
I’m new to asana and have found it easy to pick up. This makes loads of sense.
It would be good to expand and collapse sub-tasks in the main list somehow
Also, the sub tasks aren’t automatically assigned the project they are a sub-task for. Was that a deliberate decision? and if so What’s the rationale behind it?
+1 to this: “Also, the sub tasks aren’t automatically assigned the project they are a sub-task for. Was that a deliberate decision? and if so What’s the rationale behind it?”
When viewing my assigned tasks by project, all my sub tasks are listed under “no project”!
I explained above why that could be the default, but it also at times needs to be changed. Sometimes it does NOT make sense.
+1 to allowing sub-tasks to be viewed in the main window. Ideally via collapsible sub-tasks, but at the very least via a color/icon on the parent task that denotes it possessing sub-tasks. Right now I can’t see at a glance which tasks even have sub-tasks, which is a real problem for me.
It looks like this matches the data model already, and is purely an interface-level change. Typically the only issue in todo/project management to sub-tasks, is breaking the layout of the user interface should the sub-tasks become too layered. Proposed solutions:
- Limit the number of “levels” of children tasks that are displayed in the main pane. It appears the data model supports infinite nesting. Infinite nesting could create UI/UX problems, but you could limit it to 1-2 levels on the main pane.
- For children tasks, limit the amount of information shown in the task line. For example, don’t show tags or due dates etc in the main pane (they can still be seen on the rightmost pane). This would keep things less crowded.
- Make the sub-task visibility/collapsibility option in the main pane toggle-able
- Collapse sub-tasks by default
- etc.
Sub-tasks are an extremely important addition to Asana, and Asana went straight to the big leagues by allowing infinite sub-task nesting. Now, all we need is for that to be reflected more intuitively in the interface layer. We need to be able to either view our subtasks in the main pane (i.e. to re-arrange them, etc) or at the very least for tasks with children to be highlighted in some way in the main pane (so that we know which tasks we need to click on to see the sub-tasks for more information).
Thanks! Amazing product, and the development speed thus far has been really awesome! Looking forward to seeing what more is to come.
Great job! love it.
I will be happy to see the “Boaz created subtask “subtask name” ” in the Activity feed of the main task.
awesome, thanks for listening to your users! :)
Well done!
Yay! My most-desired feature has finally arrived!
My team instantly started to create checklists for our offline members (yes, they still exist in 2012). Check the boxes, give the page back, everybody wins!
Thanks for this feature.
Hi there!! very good job another time. The ultimate feature that I think will make Asana the definitive project & task management tool will be the possibility to assign some characteristics to a task or a subtask like:
- context of the task/subtask (to be selected by user like the tags)
- folder (to be selected by the user like the tags)
- priority (top, high, normal, low)
this characteristics help the user to select depending on the context or the energy in every time the next action to make, specially if, like me, you manage about 90 task simultaneously.
Congratulations, I am one of the best asana spokesman and apostles. Best tool indeed.
anxo mourelle
Awesome improvement. I can now stop using ‘[ ]‘ as pseudo subtasks in notes. I think you’ve done a great job of still keeping the system as simple as possible but adding in potentially huge functionality.
I totally recommend Asana to everyone who is even vaguely interested. :)
This is going to help our team so much! Thanks for a great addition!
Love your addition of subtasks. Great to see I can add sub-sub tasks and headings within this structure. Is there a way to identify the tasks that have subtasks from those that don’t. Additionally, is there a way to look at all of your indentations at one time in one window.
Thanks again, great addon
How is it possible to create subtasks with an email?
Our guys in the field don’t want to use an extra app. All they want to do is to write one Email.
So what I would like to have is that this guy just writes a email to the Project@asana….
Buy writing the + sign he creates a new task and by writing the – sign he adds a subtask. everything that stands behind a /sign is meant as a comment. that would be great. Add something like this and I have a chance to convince our firm to use asana.
And there was great rejoicing in the land!!!
(Now, to be able to view my project on a calendar/linear timeline so that I can visualize how much time I have til a deadline or which days are free to assign tasks…. :D )
You guys are awesome!
Sub tasks are great!
But how are they supposed to work for *Repeating* Tasks?
I have a repetaing task “Weekly meeting” which i now added a sub task to “Write MoM”.
Am I supposed to tick the sub task as completed when done or not? Seems to be confusing … and I dont get it. You might think you should tick as completed and then “receive” a new task and sub task for next week. But it doesn’t seem to work such for sub tasks.
Maybe i’m wrong …
I’m pleased to see that, subtask feature is finally created. It is really useful for my tasks.
Thank you for your awesome product asana…
Very nice addition!
Whew! Thank you, thank you and thank you again!
This is a much needed feature and it helps to manage large projects much more efficiently! Great job!
Hm, but I’ve seen them before. I have some subtasks in my tasks created 2 weeks ago. Or are you talking about something different?
Excellent addition. Our team is very excited about this.
Loving this feature, keep up the good work guys. Tasks on tasks on tasks!
Thanks! Very helpful!
This is great news. WIll you be supporting subtasks for at minimum the highest level in email task submission? For example, subject = task, body elements identified by a particular format (or all) = subtask. Thx.
This is so great because now we don’t have to worry about ticking off tasks and having them all bunch together at the top, and not being able to figure out what primary task or milestone they belonged to!
This was just my one pet peeve and you’ve knocked it out! Thank you!
What would be awesome is on hovering over a top level task – to see the count of subtasks completed and the count of subtasks that are still open.
This is very good. Now please bring it to the iPhone app! Thank you!
Thank you for this addition!! I love it! It helps when you have one task but it has all these components that go with it. Thank you Asana, keep up the great work!
Great job, thanks.
Expand / Collapse possibility could be great.
Just a way to have in one place all tasks and their subtasks shown.
You guys rock and are great examples of rapid, iterative product development.
Thanks for making life easier.
S.
Well done. Will this work on the iphone app? And when by the way will the iPad version be available. Have been asking this for awhile and on one answers. Great product, so great that I want to use it on my iPad. Pleeeeease.
Only thing missing from this post is how to create sub-tasks, Not very difficult to find out, I did, but would be an expected inclusion to this post. I did notice one possible improvement. How to make an existing task a sub-task?
and what about?
How to move a sub-task to another task?
How to have the same sub-task appear under more than one task? (Can’t prove it, but I suspect there might be useful in some, maybe rare, instances.)
Ok, maybe this is a new post, say “Ten things you need to know about sub-tasks”
;-)
Agreed on all counts. Not being able to move tasks to subtasks, etc. has been frustrating and you have to recreate the task if you want to move it. Also, you should be able to add any task, subtask, etc. to any other task (just like you can add tasks to multiple projects). Organizations have the need to track some tasks under multiple projects and views. Asana, please add these features. Thanks!!!
This is another half-baked feature because one can’t convert pre-existing tasks into some other task’s subtask.
This was my first question – can I drag a bunch of tasks and drop them on another task thereby making them into subtasks.
yes, you can do that. I tried today — while working on your list of subtasks, you can grab another task by the handle on the left edge of its row and slide it right into the list of subtasks, wherever you like.
A++
I don’t know if someone’s mentioned this, but I would like for the main task to be marked as “Complete” once all of its subtasks have been taken care of by their respective owners.
Other than that, excellent work overall. Keep it up.
yup! great addition!
Sounds exactly like the subtasks that I’ve been using since my company started using asana about a month ago.
What’s changed?
Us too. I think they added the feature a while ago and are just broadly announcing it now. Probably would not have used it at all without subtasks.
You guys are getting better by the day, but we users will always want something MORE, guess we have the responsibility to get the best out of your amazing team. Wishing you good luck for more such amazing features
Nice!
This is AWESOME! I want to know everyone’s oppinion because I just started using Asana like two months ago.
The subtasks are a great solution for my client lists and tasks that I have to do every day:
call client
call again
he answered and replied positive
he answered and replied negative
have coffee and stare at blank spot for 5 minutes
my question is:
Could you make subtask transferrable? Or some way I can copy already made subtask list into another task?
Sorry for bad english :(
Andrija
You can copy & paste text from an existing list (just select all the tasks you want to copy with shift+arrows), or from any other app, and paste that text into a subtask to create that list again.
Hello, one feature that will be very usefull is a Contact List, with information about phone numbers, email and address. I’m not talking about just the people added on the company’s, but suplies, seller’s, etc. other people’s who can be added just to be contacted on the taks. May add a function that can share the contact list from gmail.
Wow, I seem to be the only one that thinks the implementation is deficient.
Why are subtasks not shown in the tasks pane. They could be visible under the main one but indented.
The details pane is now quite busy and the flow to add them is clunky. You need to look for the little check box or hover the mouse to differentiate clearly a subtask from the note.
The feature is still usable but I am disappointed.
Agreed. It is difficult to review lower level subtasks because there is no idented structure in the main pane.
I agree with the above comment by Serge, the implementation seems lacking in that intuitively you would think the subtask would show underneath the task itself (i.e. expandable task).
The task shown in the details pane doesn’t seem like good UI. The task is clearly different than the “details” of a task but it’s not that clearly differentiated. It just blends into the rest of the task details.
One thing that appears to be a bug with subtasks: when you have a TASK set up as recurring, when it is rescheduled next, all the subtasks marked completed appear as completed when rescheduled.
I agree with another commenter that it would be better if subtasks were indented under the primary task.
yes, seems like a bug. even if you set up the subtask as recurring it gets created but it is not connected to the parent anymore. the parent recurring entry is showing only the subtask from last week/day as completed.
Thank you for launching this! If you could include the subtasks on the PDF print layout, that’d great. PDF is a nice portable way to show project progress during meetings.
THANK YOU! I was JUST wishing yesterday there was the option for subtasks!
It´s great!
This is an awesome feature. Thanks for adding!
“We Heard You Like Tasks, So We Put Some Subtasks in Your Tasks”
I see what you did there…
:D
I lol’d
Awesome App Makes me want to develop a Mac Desktop version to sync with the API.
WOW thanks alot guys Gr8 work. Keep it up!
Is this new feature available in the Android app? lol
At last. Now I can stop looking at other apps. But I agree with the UI comments above.
Awesome feature, thanks a lot for that!
Awesome! I was using “[ ]” as my workaround for a checkbox before.
Rules !!!!! thanks, thats work great!!!
This was a BIG one to cross of the bullet list! Good work guys looking forward to testing it out.
Thank you. These new features continue to make our choice for using ASANA the best thing we did for our business. Keep it up and looking forward to the next one!
Cool. This is the big feature that was limiting my usage.
This is amazing. This adds the extra functionality I have been waiting for, especially when I deal with creative people who are hard to get to follow steps!
Wow, good job guys! I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, subtasks are awesome! Keep up the great work.
I can’t even tell you how EXCITED I am about this! Happy dance! Thank you!!! What about adding internal due dates for subtasks?
Is this for paying customers only or available for the free version as well? I can’t seem to find it.
Free as well – Look for the word “Subtasks” in the details pane next to Due Date.
This is great.
One issue – all the subtasks should be automatically assigned the parent task’s Project.
Right now they float in “No Project” on my Task List until I manually add each one.
Thanks tho! I love asana. :)
Awesome stuff!
Sounds good, was looking for this feature recently when I started.
Looking good – looks like we’re close to being able to keep “completed tasks” in-line until archived for main tasks (since this is what you’re doing for sub-tasks)
I agree that a structured indented view would be interesting to see.
It would be nice if you could make it so a task w/ subtask cannot be completed until all of the subtasks are marked complete.
Still would be nice if we could mark tasks with a “unit of effort” so we could do more project planning with it.
LOVE!
Huuuuge plus!
@Perch
Great Job! I have been looking forward to this.
SO cool. I didn’t even know how badly I needed these until you created them and wrote this blog post explaining the awesome ways to use them. Assigning sub-tasks to different people? Awesome. Assigning follow-up subtasks to yourself and setting a deadline in the future and getting an email about it? Genius.
Nice!!
@asana- I noticed the Drop Box Link-
Sheesh!!!
Couldn’t you just offer a larger upload size and then we would be able to just utilize Asana for that too.
Very usefull feature
Awesome, I’ve been hoping for this feature as well! 2 suggestions from what I can see so far:
1) Make subtasks visible (but collapsible) in the main task panel, in addition to the current location. I’d rather make navigation consistently accessible than have to open the subtask conversation under the main tasks full details like it is now
2) Add hotkeys for subtasks. I currently just make my own lists inside the details of the main task, then cut/paste them into other tasks later. It’d be awesome to just add these on the fly!
Keep up the great work!
Subtasks visible but collapsable in the main task panel – yes this is a great suggestion (along with sub-tasks automatically inheriting their main project/task)
Perfect, thank you very much.
Thanks! You’ve absolutely done it again!
Now you should get to custom email notifications!
But for a less annoying response and feedback, I suggest some kind of signal to show a task has subtasks. It’s necessary.
Great Work!
Move them to the main panel and make them collapsible. Hard to see off to the right. Also would be nice if you’d explain where they are in your post. Agree with others we need an All Tasks from all Projects view.
And when I complete all the subtasks for a given Task, it would seem natural for that Task to then be marked Complete, right?
I am really excited to try out this feature. Is there a keyboard shortcut to create or make a task a sub task of another ?
I will start to use it once subtasks can be printed as notes, otherwise I cannot use subtasks for presentation. Hopefully Asana can roll this feature out in the near future. Thanks.
Thank you!! My project-manager heart is all aflutter
Love subtasks, but it certainly adds an unnecessary level in the interface. I think a simpler solution would be to make subtasks exactly the same as tasks but with a parent and show that in the middle panel.
Task
Sub-Task
Sub-Tasks level 2
In this way you can even have unlimited level of subtasks (which for big projects might be a must)
Easier to follow and navigate, and keep the right panel consistent. (Going up one level is not intuitive)
Good work anyway.
You did a Great Job guys!!! Thank You!!!!
great work, love sub-tasks.
However, then, I don’t want to see parents tasks in the task list anymore. For me, the task list should be the list of “actionable” tasks. Once a parent task has sub-tasks, the parent task is not actionable anymore at least until all of its sub-tasks are completed.
The best way would be to make parents tasks go away from the task list (and somehow come back when all of its sub-tasks are completed.) If it is too complicated, at least you could highlight parent tasks in the list in a different color or something so that users can ignore them immediately.
This was one massive missing piece….thank you so much!!
Now my dream features that I hope for:
-The ability to default assign tasks to myself (I’m a one person operation)
-Android app, dear god an android app
-Be able to get rid of Personal Projects. I’ve read and read and still can’t figure out why on earth I should use it, but I can’t get rid of it and it’s cluttering up my screen
Please keep up the great work!!
Yes, I definitely agree with all of those!
Great news! Good luck!
Great stuff! Very happy.
This is very great news! Thanks Asana!
Awesome!
Never before have “to do” was so funny
Whoa… this really lord of the business dashboard… One “Dashboard” to rule them all !! Nice Jobs !
Noticed the feature and used immediately before I got the announcement. LOVE THIS FEATURE. So far, I also like how it has been implemented and disagree with many suggestions on how to manage sub versus parent tasks in the UI. This visual representation and conceptualizing of how the hierarchy is assigned and functions works well for managing projects in my organization.
This is excellent news as it brings Asana one step closer to fully supporting the IDEAL Action methodology for managing your actions and staying out of BUSYNESS. :)
I’ll have an upcoming blog post dedicated to this and finally feel comfortable offering up Asana as a solution for my follower base.
Sincerely,
Dr. Brad Semp
The Busyness Doctor
http://Busyness.com
sub-tasks need to auto-inherit the project the parent is assigned to. then allow a user override so the sub-task can live in a different project.
+1
Also, when they appear in the main task list, best they are indented under the main task/project they are assigned to.
Nice, would like to have it easier to get to. Maybe a shortcut key? Thanks guys.
Tab-S takes you there from the task list.
I’m loving the subtasks! Thanks so much!
Thanks for adding this feature!!!
Thanks for listening and responding!!!
Love asana, use it every day for business and personal projects.
Thank you again for adding the Subtask feature.
I just noticed that Subtasks don’t appear in the printout of a Project. When might the Asana team make this possible? I find the Printout feature valuable, and want Subtasks and their Notes, as well as Tasks, to appear in my printouts.
No sooner do you give us a a great improvement than we ask for more. Thanks for continuing to develop Asana.
Is Activity Sequencing next? (i.e. task linking)
Will that get us out of pick-a-date-project-management and use scheduling?
Looking forward to all the improvements
Thank you for building such a cool tool!
Thank you very much guys. I love the work you’re doing. Keep it up!
love the new sub-task feature – works exactly as you would want it to
Why I have no tags in my workspace? Where they coulbe turned on?
Thank you very much!
Great!!! I love that you’ve added subtasks. Thank you!
Having started to work with them over the past two days, I have a couple of questions/suggestions:
- Is there a way to make subtasks default to the primary task owner? I’m a sole proprietor so want the subtasks to show up on my to-do list but don’t want to have to go in and edit every one individually to do that. (I’d also REALLY, REALLY like to have ALL tasks default to me for the same reason, but that suggestion probably belongs in a different post.)
- Similarly, can the subtasks be set to automatically default to the same project as the master task? It would be pretty unusual for the subtask NOT to be part of the same project as the Master task so why have to take the extra step of manually assigning them to that project?
Blown away by subtasks. Fabulous!
Agree with others that we do not need a desktop version. Would MUCH MUCH rather have one summary view for all tasks I need to work on today. It would be my shortcut list so I can stay on top of my day’s work.
I really love Asana!
I just love subtasks. They were the missing bit! Now I can break a large horrible task down into small horrible tasks, and delegate some of them.
Thanks for implementing subtexts.
Create a points system for completed tasks. It will create competition between co-workers.
Love subtasks. But it just adds to my one problem with the system. My team of 70 is using it and we have a lot of projects and tasks. It has become difficult to work with so much data. I need a super compressed iPad version that lets me see more than the current mobile site or app. And some forms of management tools to help teams manage overdue items and keep Asana “clean”.
I absolutely love it! Makes things even more organized. Thanks!
Woohoo! Using Asana for managing client projects just got more awesome.
Awesome App, it would be good if it has Android version! :(
Anyways great work! :)
Thank you.
+1 on the Android app. And +1 for being able to see which tasks have sub-tasks and unfold them in the main view.
(Yes, I also long for an offline version. But I consider that thread highjacking… ;-) )
+1 for keyboard shortcuts; IMO one of the top features of Asana is it’s keyboard usability. A feature that requires my fingers to leave the keyboard is a lost feature.
Love this feature! :D
Thank you! I was hoping you would add this feature.
I was waiting for it!
Fantastic…
Like others – it’s a good feature but needs to appear on the printout.
Great feature!
Thank you! :-)
Thanks, but I think you should add the subtasks to the middle pane…
Nice work! Love subtasks.
Not sure if you can do this, but I want task templates or something like that. For example, “Send out monthly newsletter” is good because it always has the same steps and you shouldn’t have to enter them each time, but what if that task didn’t happen on a regular schedule and you still wanted to re-use those steps?
I’d like to assign multiple people to the Main Task. Is there the possibility of maybe adding a checkbox to the new subtask to simply direct the subassignee to the main task? Than people can work together on the same exact task.
Until the world gives up paper, please allow for printing sub tasks.
Agree that this is a cool function, but we also need export/print of all sub-tasks on a project. Could sub-tasks show on the task panel?
Anyway, thx for a great product.
While I love that Subtasks are finally a feature the kind of projects we work on here are so complex and layered that we need to be able to do sub-sub-sub-sub-sub tasks. That’s why our office is getting by using Workflowy for task management because it allows the sort of depth and dynamic focusing at multiple levels of detail. Like Erin is saying, while it is great to be able to see the subtasks in the main task, seeing the subtasks in a collapsible indented heirarchy would be even better.
Man, this is awesome. You guys added functionality but still kept it clean. I pretty much don’t use any Visual Studio tools because they’re far too completed to navigate through. I love clean design & I can tell the founders come from Facebook & Google, which both companies really strive at clean design. Keep up the fantastic work.
Love the Subtasks!!! Would like to be able to convert a Task into a Subtask of another Task and convert a Subtask into a Primary Task too if needed too. Keep the great upgrades coming Asana!
I love subtasks.
What happened to duplicate tasks? I often have a team member create the same task as someone else, or what should be a subtask of another task.
Is there a way to consolidate them?
Yo dawg, I heard you like to do taskswhile you task, so we put subtasks in your tasks so you can task while you task!
awesome feature, real talk.
Sub-tasks my ASS! ..and pardon my language.
This is aaaalmost utterly useless at least in terms of overview. One still only has one level of tasks in the main list.
In ANY project larger than doing ones grocery shopping, it will be necessary to have a visual structure of tasks, sub-tasks, sub-sub tasks and so on.
Am I the only one that sees this and can this really be so hard to implement?
Well..back to excel for me :-(
Kalle, check out the “add project” function on the sub tasks. That’s the best way I’ve found to add in hierarchy. Remember that Asana’s focus is on collaboration. Here, we use Microsoft Project for full-on project management and reporting. Asana is used for the developers to work out how they’re going to perform each task of the project. Asana’s visibility is used by the PM to easily update the bigger picture in Microsoft Project without having to hunt down individuals for updates.
Bottom line is that if you’re working with many large-scale, non-linear projects and have need for reporting KPIs, you’re going to end up using Asana to complement, not replace, a PM tool.
Thank you very much for this post..
Love the subtasks feature. It’s natural for me to group tasks in hierarchal fashion like this, but I wish there were a way to view the subtasks inline under the parent task, perhaps indented. It’s easy to miss them otherwise and collaborators may not even know they exist unless they’ve been assigned one.
Thank you I love the subtask feature. However when I sort by “My Tasks” task that are subtasks are under the heading of “No Project.”
I also am in favor of being able to view subtasks inline.
I discovered the answer to my own dilemma above. It appears you have to add the project to each subtask. It would be more streamlined of the subtask inherited some of the information from the parent task, certainly project and perhaps even due date and assignee until changed.
This is a really great addition to Asana’s capabilities. I hope you could also add a calendar to the mix someday…thanks…
Great addition to useablility! Thks.
Nice job, good feature, print disadvantage!
I believe y really could be fasterer! in terms of growth and improvements ..
thanks
Thanks Asana — great stuff. Tho I was hoping this would let me ditch my other project ,management tools because I’ve learned to love asana for about 75% of the stuff I work on, but I need to be able to “print” the status update including subtasks for the boss and some meetings and move things around a little easier (eg turn tasks to subtasks etc.), The subtask creation interface is a little spastic. So I’ll continue to use it for my more straight forward stuff, but for real planning with iteration its not quite ready.
The sub-tasks should by default belong to the same project as the parent when created!
Wonderful! I like it. It is a step closer to being able to assign something to multiple people. I still think you need to add something for that though. For instance what if a task is for two people to meet about something and come up with a plan- you need to assign it to both of them.
When I create 1 subtask, the menu item to create another subtask disappears, so I’m only able to create 1 subtask. Can you please fix this bug?
Great. But please show sub-tasks in the main list as-well
Regards
Girish R
http://techathlon.com
thanks!
we love asana
we love asana
we love asana
we love asana
we love asana
we love asana
thanks
gaston
http://mcdg.com.ar
Waoo…Its great addition from Asana. By giving subtask functionality Asana is going to rock the world. It also attract me more. Only functionality which was missing.
would be even better if you can see the subtasks underneath the parent task in the main panel.
good job!
+1 for auto-inheriting parent’s projets
Additionally, I would like to have also assignee, tags, and maybe also due-date inherited by default.
Another tip: seeing numeric indicator of incomplete subtask in the task header might be helpful.
Woow…Great work. I was looking for this functionality from long ago and i also mention this functionality in my suggestions to Asana. It will make the project management effective and easy.
Thanks Asana team for continuous efforts and struggle to make it more better.
So you can submanage while you manage?
Um, with respect to (a) visibility of subtasks, (b) expansion + collapse of subtasks, and (c) print/don’t print subtasks
See: Excel, Group Rows.
So I’m just trying out this features, it’s “neat” but why not just have nestable tasks with up to say 6 (totally arbitrary) levels of nesting?
The more I use this the more I think it is not useful since there is no auto-inheritance of parent attributes. That _should_ be a very programming simple fix
So glad subtasks were added but I definitely agree with all the comments above about how they are visually organized currently.
They should live within their parent task in a extendable / collapsible table and definitely should be indented. For example, right now it’s confusing to see all these tasks that are subtasks take the same visual importance at a glance. Instead when there are subtasks assigned to me, I’d like to see the parent task (whether or not it’s assigned to me) and my assigned subtasks underneath. That way I can clearly identify what I owe as part of a larger task and when I am the lead on a task with subtasks as well.
I would also love to be able to set subtasks to inherit values of its parent task. I like to sort My Tasks by Project and by default, all these subtasks have “No Project” and that’s misleading.
Thanks for all the hard work!
Rochelle
I have sub-tasks that are recurring (as part of a daily checklist). Thank you for that feature. Can we hide (or archive) sub-tasks that we’ve completed so that the sub-task page is not nearly as cluttered?
Only allows me to create 1 subtask and then that option goes away. Any suggestions?
Thumbs up for this feature. Would be even more awesome if there is a way to display percentage of completion [completed sub task / incomplete sub task] in the main viewing pane.
how can i archive sub-tasks?
I’d prefer sub-tasks didn’t show up as equal citizens in the middle panel with all the main tasks.
Is it possible to archive subtasks?
+1 to allowing sub-tasks to be viewed in the main window. Ideally via collapsible sub-tasks, but at the very least via a color/icon on the parent task that denotes it possessing sub-tasks. Right now I can’t see at a glance which tasks even have sub-tasks, which is a real problem for me.
It looks like this matches the data model already, and is purely an interface-level change. Typically the only issue in todo/project management to sub-tasks, is breaking the layout of the user interface should the sub-tasks become too layered. Proposed solutions:
- Limit the number of “levels” of children tasks that are displayed in the main pane. It appears the data model supports infinite nesting. Infinite nesting could create UI/UX problems, but you could limit it to 1-2 levels on the main pane.
- For children tasks, limit the amount of information shown in the task line. For example, don’t show tags or due dates etc in the main pane (they can still be seen on the rightmost pane). This would keep things less crowded.
- Make the sub-task visibility/collapsibility option in the main pane toggle-able
- Collapse sub-tasks by default
- etc.
Sub-tasks are an extremely important addition to Asana, and Asana went straight to the big leagues by allowing infinite sub-task nesting. Now, all we need is for that to be reflected more intuitively in the interface layer. We need to be able to either view our subtasks in the main pane (i.e. to re-arrange them, etc) or at the very least for tasks with children to be highlighted in some way in the main pane (so that we know which tasks we need to click on to see the sub-tasks for more information).
Thanks! Amazing product, and the development speed thus far has been really awesome! Looking forward to seeing what more is to come.
I second what everyone is saying about subtasks inheriting parent task attributes as well as how they are displayed. Not being able to actually see the relationship between task/subtask is confusing
Using priority headings is not even a good workaround because when sorting by priority the hierarchy is lost!
Its such as you learn my thoughts! You seem to grasp so much about this, like you wrote the ebook in it or something. I believe that you just can do with a few percent to power the message home a bit, however instead of that, that is great blog. A great read. I’ll definitely be back.
Please think of multiple parent tasks.
Sub-task often relate to several parent threads, and user needs to see it.
It will be very useful
Thank you