Tasks dependency setup should not be locked base on Task Status

Julien Thiery

Hi guys,

I noticed a strange behavior/UX in wrike today.

1- I was waiting for an information from some colleague, which blocked one of my task

>> action : task status = Blocked.

Then, having a bit of delay, i decided to create a specific task to get the action done by a colleague

2- Create second task, setup dependancy.

and here is the issue:

if the task is "active", i can set the dependency
if the task is "blocked" (on hold), I can't set the dependency

I do not understand this behavior. Whatever the actual status of my task, i should be able to manage all project management feature associated with those task, especially dependencies

read you soon and happy to get any feedback

Julien

Find more posts tagged with

Not planned

Status: Not planned

Comments

Julien Thiery

hey Wrike Support team: quick up: is this a bug or on purpose?

thanks

Chance Callahan Burgess

I noticed this too while I was iterating a project template that we use. I had to change the parent tasks to an active status before it would let me assign dependencies. Looking forward hearing a response from Wrike on this.

Julien Thiery

Hey Wrike Moderation: a quick up?

Is this anoying behavior a bug or on purpose?

thanks

Julien

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hey guys, I'm very sorry for such a long reply, must have overlooked this thread 😔

@Julien, please let me know whether you've brought it up with our Support - if not, I can raise a ticket for you because I think this needs some troubleshooting.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hey again, quick update: our Product team has plans to add this improvement to the roadmap for 2020. I'll let you know when I have more details. 😇

Permanently deleted user

Hey everyone, there are still plans to implement this at some point this year. I'll let you know as soon as I have more information!

Julien Thiery

This would be awesome, as it's really not userfriendly, costs some time, and generates useless notififcations, so bring sometimes confusion.

Looking forward for a positive bug fixing and thanks for the information

Stacey Olsen

Hello, I see this issue is still on Backburner. We could REALLY use this addition, otherwise we have to set them to Not Started, but they are actually just waiting on someone else to finish a task before they can begin. Then they show up as Overdue which is not the case, and can get cluttered with the rest of the Overdue items that are actionable.

Any word for the On Hold dependency capability?

Elaine McDonagh

Hi @Stacey Olsen, thanks for checking in here.

Looking into this for you now and will be back here ASAP 👍

Elaine McDonagh

Hey folks, I wanted to share an update here to let you know that unfortunately, there are no plans for this at the moment.

I know this will come as disappointing news, as this had been planned. However, upon closer investigation, the team encountered blockers that made the implementation of this suggestion more difficult than originally thought and for that reason, there are no plans for this currently.

The status here remains 'Backburner', as the team is still interested in this and there is the potential that this could be addressed in the future. Thanks for your support of this suggestion and the feedback you've shared here. We'll be sure to keep you updated on any changes 👍

Elizabeth Bevels

Any updates? Because of this "bug," we've stopped using deferred statuses altogether. We've created a custom workflow with "on hold" as an active status, and then book the on hold tasks super far in advance to take them off the assignee's radar. It is sketchy and inconvenient, and it renders an entire status category moot.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi everyone! I have checked with the team, and for now, they don't have this suggestion on their plans as they have other enhancements on their roadmap. Please rest assured we'll continue passing on your feedback and the vote count here, and we will let you know if there are any updates in the future.

Jessie Stith

I recently encountered this issue last week when updating some processes for our marketing team. While disappointed it's not planned, I just wanted to chime in here because there are so many other changes and enhancements happening with the table view it seems like now it could maybe get on the roadmap?

I agree you should have access to dependencies no matter what the status is. Especially with all the new automation features that have been implemented since this request initially came about.

I did want to share another workaround that hasn't been mentioned here yet. While you can't use the dependencies list inside of a task or the pick whip on the gantt chart to update a task in an on hold status, you can manually enter a dependency in the gantt table or in the new table view if you have the predecessor field enabled. Just double click on the field in the table, and enter the relationship for the task. For example, 3FS.

This picture demonstrates three test tasks. The two dependent tasks following the first are in on hold status. The predecessors were manually entered in the table and are highlighted below.

To ensure notifications go out, you could set up an automation so that when all predecessors are complete, the status changes to an active status and @ mentions a team member. They'll get something in their inbox and be able to see the task on their to do list at this point.

Juan Muttoni

Hi @Jessie Stith, thank you very much for your detailed comment and for sharing this workaround!