[DELIVERED] Subtasks

Andrew Lapidus

One of our most requested MeisterTask features is subtasks - a way to break tasks into smaller parts, or even divide up the work between multiple people.

UPDATE:

Subtasks were released on October 16th:

https://community.meister.co/discussion/2211/new-release-subtasks

Richard

This is nice but this is also sort of already possible by assigning checklist items. Would these fit into task dependencies?

JVanSickle

Subtask is not how I think of it but from your description could be the direction to solve some of the workflow scheduling issue I have using MeisterTask.

I have tasks that either have multiple Dead lines and scheduling dates. For example maybe I am know between steps there has to be a delay or pause. ie Cure time for chemicals.

I would really like this feature to help with the Scheduling/Timeline feature.

I might even have different team member working on the task per and post "pause".

Right now I am trying to use relationships to connect task but it creates a more clunky flow and is quickly cluttering my task boards.

Miša Hennin

Hey @JVanSickle, thanks for sharing your input! I think subtasks could work as a solution for the situation you're describing too, but perhaps using checklist items might be a temporary way to work around this? 🤔

E.g. You could use the checklist items to clarify the different deadlines (although it's true you wouldn't be notified like you are for a task's deadline). Checklist items can also be assigned to different team members - that's how we use the checklists to assign a single task to multiple team members.

If you've got a different solution, be sure to post it in the Feature Ideas category so other users can upvote it! 😃

Best,

Miša

Miša Hennin

Hey @Richard 👋! That's exactly right! Assigning checklist items allows you to involve multiple team members in a single task and break the bigger task up into smaller subtasks 😄.

Check out this MeisterHack for more info on using checklist items in this way and please share any more thoughts you might have! ❤️

Best,

Miša

JVanSickle

Thanks @Miša I had not seen how to assign the checklist. Thank you for the link.

Admin BSF.company

https://community.meister.co/discussion/comment/94#Comment_94

Exactly! I was about to write the same. Plus the Task dependencies features.

I am not sure about how or why a sub-task feature would be needed, having checklists and task dependencies.

How would "sub-tasks" work if implemented?

Occasionally, we have complex stuff going on, and we haven't needed a sub-task feature so far.

This one got my curiosity ...

Admin BSF.company

https://community.meister.co/discussion/comment/207#Comment_207

@Miša this is gold! 🏆️

Where can I find more MeisterHacks?

There should be a dedicated category or tag, don't you think?

Miša Hennin

Hey @Andres D'Andrea!

I've seen your other post so I know you've already figured it out but YES!! We have lots of MeisterHacks in the Community for all three of our tools.😍 Simply search MeisterHacks and they will come up as they are all tagged.

We also want to invite our users to share any MeisterHacks they've come across in the same format 🤗.

Regarding sub-tasks - @Andrew Lapidus have you got any more insight on how they'd be implemented?

Richard

Really love the discussion here! Thanks @Andres D'Andrea @Andrew Lapidus @Miša and @JVanSickle!

Michael Heil

The problem with Checklist-Items is, that you can't give them a due Date and the person who is responsible for a Checklist-Item, doesn't have this Item in his task list in MeisterTask, correct?

JVanSickle

an additional problem is doesn't easily show the work load of a user to the admin.

Michael Heil

I also think, MeisterTask should somehow show that a Task is a Subtask (Generators from a Checklist item) or a Maintask. The Problem is, that you usually have more than one subtask for a maintask. And in a MT-board for me it is confusing to see the maintask and several subtasks of this maintask, without directly realizing, that it is a maintask (handling „the same“ issue). I hope I was able to describe my problem accurate 😉

Admin BSF.company

Ohh, good points @Michael Heil and @JVanSickle.

I've got to recognize that when I've faced a similar situation, in which assignment of individual tasks to each user is critical, my take has been quite rudimentary. "Manual", if you like.

It involves:

• Duplicating the main task as many times as users need to be assigned.
• Assign each user their task with their respective due date.
• Delete unneeded checklist items in individual tasks.

However, I had just reflected on why I've spliced tasks like that so few times in the past, and the reason is, we like to exploit to the max the collaboration features in MeisterTask.

For example, in a complex task with 3 people involved and different checklist items, we:

• Use the due date field differently than in regular tasks (more on this below).
• Ask relevant questions in the comment section of that task instead of emails.
• Mention people involved in the comment section to get their attention quick and easy.
• Change task assignment as checklist items progress.
• Monitor MT notifications like it's our company's heartbeat.
• Exploit the chat integration with Slack for longer conversations that need to happen.

How we use due dates (DD) in this kind of complex tasks?

• DD is when the first checklist item or batch of items should be completed.
• DD is not used to mark the whole task expected completion date.
• DD changes constantly. It progresses forward with the completion of checklist items.

To keep clarity and transparency among the team, we leave estimated completion dates for checklist items in the checklist item itself. And for the entire task in the task's description.

In cases when the previous isn't enough for controlling project's management, task dependencies and timelines have proven a solid solution.

I share this comments just as a contribution to how we use the features already available.

I recognize that sub-tasks might also be a great addition to the features list of MeisterTask.

Best regards.

Andres D'Andrea

Michael Heil

@Andres D'Andrea hey, very helpfull and interesting ideas & items. I have to read this a couple of more times and test it with my team. I‘ll get back with you on that to share my experiences 😉👍💪👌

Admin BSF.company

Sure @Michael Heil, I'm glad to be of help.

Let me know how it went with the team when you implement those methods in the future.

Don't hesitate to contact me in case I can provide further advice.

Cheers 😉👉️

Michael Heil

@Andres D'Andrea good morning. Have you checked out the feature to generate a dependend subtask out of a checklist item? Before you have to activate the dependencies in the board (sorry, I am german and I hope I get the wordings right 😉).

if you generate a subtask from a checklist item, Main- and subtasks are linked in each task and you can see all subtasks in the main task. Even when a subtask is completed, it is crossed out.

I think that is a cool feature to manage subtasks.

@meister but in that case, as I mentioned in one of my Posts before, the main task should be somehow marked visible in the board to recognize it rightaway as a main task

Here are some screenshots

Admin BSF.company

Hello @Michael Heil, that's a great explanation. Thanks for sharing those screenshots.

Yes, indeed! You made yourself pretty clear: task relationships must be enabled in the power up settings of the board before having the ability to do what is shown in your images.

I'll make sure to put that into practice the next time we get complex stuff going on.

Thanks again for sharing those excellent screenshots (I'm the visual kind of person) 👏👏👏

Best regards.

Michael Heil

@Andres D'Andrea & @Miša in reference to my above mentioned feature of subtasks generated out of checklist-items, I would now consider it important that these subtasks are also displayed in the timeline as (collapsible) subtasks under the maintask as bars. It would be cool, if you could add dependencies to these subtask bars in the timeline with a drawn arrow (end>start; end>end; start>end; start>start), like e.g. in MS Project 😉.

Andrew Lapidus

Thanks so much for the extremely illuminating discussion! It's very valuable to our product team to be able to see how users are using existing MT features to reflect on subtasks/tasks.

Wow, @Michael Heil - I totally didn't know that checklist items converted to tasks also immediately create a "related to" dependency - that's an excellent tip & MeisterHack!

Andrew Lapidus

Also @Andres D'Andrea , I like the idea of constantly updating the due date to update assignees and maintain necessary actions into one centralized task. It does sound to me like a subtask feature might potentially make this a bit easier to manage, however, the key here would be to make sure that it is very clear what is the main-task and what is the sub-task (I could imagine that otherwise, this would clutter up a board in a way that checklist items would not).

Andrew Lapidus

Hello subtask fans! @Andres D'Andrea @JVanSickle , @Michael Heil @Richard

I wanted to reach out with an update: Our UX team has prepared an early design for sub-tasks in MeisterTask, and we'd be interested in users willing to give us their feedback on this (VERY) early UX design.

**Please keep in mind that this is purely a "design" test, and will not demonstrate the full functionality of the feature.**

If you'd be interested in testing and providing feedback, send me a DM and I'll get you set up!

Best,

Andrew

Michael Heil

https://community.meister.co/discussion/comment/325#Comment_325

Yes 👍 I am interested

Admin BSF.company

https://community.meister.co/discussion/comment/459#Comment_459

Sure @Andrew Lapidus, I'm on it already, thanks for the notice. I'll let you know when it's done!

Best regards.

Andrés D'Andrea

Michael Heil

@Andrew Lapidus

In my opinion, it is very important that you can see directly on the board which task is a subtask and which is a main task, because both task cards are about the same topic and that can lead to confusion. If you recognize that it is a main task, you know that there are subtasks in there and can look into them. But it should also be possible for a task to be both a subtask and a maintask at the same time, because I can even subdivide a subtask into smaller steps/tasks. However, once the new subtask feature is available, you can certainly do these smaller steps using a checklist.

In the screenshot above the top right is the main task and the bottom left is the subtask

S.Me

Hi everyone!

We have only recently introduced MeisterTask in our company. And already after less than 14 days we had a task inflation in our project board, because we lack a third level (subtask level with independent owner and due date). Also for us a third level is absolutely necessary. Creating tasks from checklist items is out of the question for us, because we don't have enough levels to absorb the resulting task inflation. Now we have bloated project boards with far too many tasks and little overview. Therefore, we are very interested in the subtask level and I would be interested to know how far the development of this is and when we can expect to use this third level. Super excited for this to be launched!

Cheers,

Sophie

Furkan Tokmak

Hi everyone,

Our team would benefit from this a lot. Checklists are simply not enough to define sub tasks for us. My suggestion would be being able to drag and drop tasks within eachother to define the subtask. That would make it well organized and easy to manage. Also task relations could benefit from this. Right now we can define relations and they are not very obvious and hard to orient.

We are excited to see that feature.

Andrew Lapidus

Hi all - Happy to report that implementing Subtasks has been accepted onto MeisterTask's roadmap for Q1!

Big thanks to everyone in this thread for upvoting, testing, providing use cases, and advocating for subtasks — Your feedback has been essential for bringing awareness to the need for this feature, and has contributed to our team's prioritization.

I'll keep this thread updated with details as they happen!

Best,

Andrew

Scott Ricken

Thanks for the information and transparency here - kudos to the team.

Richard

Super thrilled for subtasks! Looking forward to an update next quarter

Thanks!

David

We are excited to see subtasks coming to Meistertask. This is long overdue and a much needed feature. We are a video production group and often have multiple shoots or videos for a specfic project. I am hopeful that the subtasks can be tiles that indent under master tasks. We definiatly do not need another checklist. It needs to be it's own tile under out tiles. Additonally the ability to assign multiple people to a subtasks or task is important. Sometimes tasks are done by a team, such as videographer, producer and production assistant. Looking forward to this release! Thanks David!