What's the best way to go for subtasks?

[YvetteLans]

Hi,

I just found this old topic. I’m finding a solution for the following use case.

Context
We have big projects. A project has tasks and tasks can have subtasks.

What we want
To manage the big projects in an easy way. We want to know what the status is of the tasks and their subtasks. We usually did this in ClickUp via a Kanban board. You could visually see the status of subtasks and their parent task.

Problem
Can’t find a good way to manage the subtasks. We have a lot ‘hanging on’ tasks (automations, planning, notifications, templates). So ideally we have a task - task (many to one) relation to create subtasks. But the problem is that the subtasks does’t show up in boards or list view.

Alternative would be a seperate subtask database. But that will be quite complex/problematic because of all the templates, automations and formulas.

Thanks in advance!

[Matt_Blais]

@YvetteLans

the problem is that the subtasks does’t show up in boards or list view.

If subtasks are simply Tasks (with a relation to a parent Task), there is no reason they should not show up in Task views. I do this and it works.

How would you ideally like to see subtasks displayed in views that show the parent Tasks?

[tpaktop]

I find there are two ways to tackle subtasks.

1. Create separate entity for grouping. Something like an epic.
   This is useful for cases when you want to add extra field to parent task. You can then use Epic as a row to group your tasks in board view.
2. More complicated but allows for deeper hierarchies is a self referential task.
   For that you need to create a reference from task to itself. With treeview you can nest subtasks inside subtasks inside other subtasks and as deep as you want to go
   In that scenario I usually put a formulate “Is Parent Task” on the task which check if nested tasks collections is not empty.
   In the board view I would then filter all non parents tasks and only see specific tasks in the board view.
   You should be able to also group tasks by parent task though I haven’t tried.

You could visually see the status of subtasks and their parent task:
I use formulas for that to calculate percentage of completion on parent task based on percentages of completions of subtasks.

[YvetteLans]

@Matt_Blais

How would you ideally like to see subtasks and their parent tasks. Including assignees, deadline, etc.

Ideally the more detailed information in a hierarchical list view (deadline, assignees, progress, etc.). Simple status in a kanban board.

The tasks do show up in a board (my bad) and we fixed that you can see if a ‘parent’ task has subtasks.

But would be great if I can see the task + subtasks in a board view. So for example ClickUp’s solution.

1. You can see a task has subtasks.
   

2. You can click on the subtasks to open and see details
   

   

ClickUp sucks But they do had a few good options for subtasks, such as:
.

And their grouping (based on a single select for example) is also really nice. Currently I’m having all kind of workarounds to show ‘project fase lanes’ in board view because I can’t group.

Can create workarounds but for the complete overview I’m missing the ‘collapse / expand’ (especially in list view). And currently I don’t see a good option (with task - task relation) to get a good project overview of the subtasks like I had in ClickUp.

@tpaktop

Create separate entity for grouping. Something like an epic.
This is useful for cases when you want to add extra field to parent task. You can then use Epic as a row to group your tasks in board view.

Yes I think I need something like this. Although it feels a bit odd since a lot is not really an epic (for example: ‘Testing’ with all the subtasks underneath). But when I do have it I can create a hierarchical list (only bummer is that the collapse/expand option is missing in Fibery)

@tpaktop

More complicated but allows for deeper hierarchies is a self referential task.
For that you need to create a reference from task to itself. With treeview you can nest subtasks inside subtasks inside other subtasks and as deep as you want to go

Really curious how to do that. So it’s not a normal task - task many to one relation?

Because that I’ve tried but only one level of tasks will apear.

Thanks for the help guys, really appreciate it!

[Matt_Blais]

@YvetteLans

The tasks do show up in a board (my bad) and we fixed that you can see if a ‘parent’ task has subtasks.

But would be great if I can see the task + subtasks in a board view.

You can see both the tasks and subtasks in the board view, but this view cannot show hierarchical relationships between cards/entities. I think only the List view has that capability.

Board view does also support grouping/lanes, but Table view does not
For example I can use the “Client” field to group my Tasks.

I think “Tree View” is specific to Fibery Whiteboards. But the List view will automatically show multiple levels of nesting if it is configured to show a self-referential hierarchy:

Perhaps you’d like to add a Feature Request for something like “Hierarchical entity grouping in Board View”.

[tpaktop]

@YvetteLans made a video for you - CleanShot 2023-02-02 at 11.49.38 · CleanShot Cloud

• how to create self referential task
• Shows how to display hierarchy on list view(multiple levels)
• Hierarchy on board view(only one leve)

[YvetteLans]

Thanks for the video @tpaktop It works! And also thanks @Matt_Blais for your help!