More control with dependencies

It would be interesting to have deferent level of control on dependencies. Like very strict option.

Example: To avoid employees to start a task before a prior task is completed, it would be useful to block the stopwatch and the status box for the task waiting for the completion of this task.

It would resolve a big problem here.

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Status: On hold

Comments

Miquel Brunet

We faced this problem some time ago and requested via customer service a request to add a "dependency status traffic light" to the tasks in order to be able to identify those tasks that have all the dependency chain completed (green traffic light) from the rest of tasks that had dependency chain uncompleted/active (traffic light red). Such traffic light should be visible in My Work, List view...etc. in order to be able to work on the tasks "ready" for working on.

As far as i know, unfortunately such feature is not available yet in Wrike.

Meanwhile, we are sorting out the problem using Custom Workflows as much as possible in order to smooth the process whilst reducing the number of tasks to be created to do the job.

Finally, just let you know that there is an exciting new feature "Boards view" in labs https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000193205-Board-View where we can visualize much better the tasks of the custom workflow defined in a folder.

Anyway, my vote for your request because there are situations where tasks have dependencies and your proposal or a traffic light would be much appreciated.

Regards

Pascal Flamand

Thanks Miquel for your comment, nice to see that we are not the only one who'd like that feature.

I worked on something using the boards last weekend, it won't be perfect but like you said it will be much better for visualisation.

Even thought I would really like my request to be integrated in Wrike.

Best,

Permanently deleted user

Hi Pascal and Miquel! These ideas are great, and I also love how you're using Custom Statuses and the Board View. I can see how more options for dependencies would be useful, thank you for sharing your feedback about them!

Christopher Flaten

Totally agree. What's the point of dependencies if they're not enforceable. Much like the penal code, without enforceability, it's just a suggestion.

Permanently deleted user

Hi again Christopher! Thank for adding your comment to this post, I really appreciate it.

Keeley Reed

I would like for tasks with dependencies to simply NOT SHOW UP until the dependent task is completed. That is the entire purpose of dependencies, is it not? My team likes to know what is "coming up" so they like to see the future tasks on their dashboard, but they get confused because they don't actually know if it's ready for them to work on yet, or not. A solution would be to make tasks with incomplete dependencies greyed out until the dependent task is marked as complete.

This is going to be a HUGE problem for us until resolved. Please say this is in the works!

Abbey Stanerson

I agree with Keeley!! ^^ It's very confusing to set your day-to-day duties when a task shows up on my dashboard and once I get into I realize I don't have what's need from the rest of my team. Then go to the dependent task to see the status to find other things still need to happen. If other things still need to happen, it shouldn't be on the to-dos for the day or on our radar at all. Now, I've wasted time on a task not yet ready for me.

I love the grayed out solution Keeley provided above!

Alexander Belyaev

Hi everyone.

It’s Alexander from Wrike’s Product team. We definitely agree that right now the existence of dependencies is not transparent enough when you’re working on a task, and dependencies are currently useful mainly for managers, who can see them on the Timeline. We are planning to explore options suggested by Miquel and Keeley (“traffic light” and “greying out”) but it will happen sometime during Q3.

Considering the fact that you are all using dependencies, it may be interesting for you to know that me and my Development Team are currently working on rolling out a new version of Wrike’s Timeline. If you’re interested in learning more about that and even giving the new version a try, please leave a comment here. I would also be happy to learn more about the way you work (generally and specifically with Timeline and dependencies) if you’d have a spare hour for a conversation with me.

Keeley Reed

I would love to help!

Pascal Flamand

Hi Alexender, We would like to test your timeline here.

Miquel Brunet

Dear Alexander

We would like to know about the new timeline and dependencies.

Thank you in advance!

Kathleen Paluso

Hi Alexander - We would also like to test updates to the timeline and dependancies. I agree that tasks that show up on a user's "My Work" list and/or their Workload view when they can't actually work on them are very confusing. Greying items out or a traffic light would be great. Thanks!

Rebecca McInnis

I would like to know more about the Timeline view, but can't commit to using it until I have more information. My team and I absolutely need an option for making tasks where dependencies have not been met less/not visible until they are ready to be worked on. We work with large scale projects with 100's of tasks and dozens of dependency chains, as a part of the leadership team, I work in the Timeline view daily to keep tabs on the project.

Please let me know if this is something you are still working on and would like feedback on. Thanks!

Bradley Steele

Our organization would also like to be able to filter tasks (on reports and dashboards) based on whether or not the dependency chain is complete. We have hundreds of active linear projects at any given time, and currently we are spending too much time trying to find dependency status if a previous task runs late. Users are receiving tasks not knowing if the task is actually ready for them, which is causing frustration.

The suggested workarounds don't really work for us on our scale. If "non-ready" tasks could be filtered out, that's all that we would need to keep our users focused on their work instead of tracking down whether or not their work is ready.

Scott Henderson

I'd be happy to help test with beta/testing timeline features, Alexander! 😀

Stephanie Westbrook

Thanks everyone for your posts here. When and if we have a beta test, or more information, on when this feature is available I'll be sure to update you here and get you involved!

Mike Swilling

Hi,

This all sounds very interesting - where did we get to on dependencies? I don't know if this is the right place to post - new to Wrike - but a few things I am really puzzled about:

If you create dependencies with milestones, why don't milestones move when earlier dependencies dates move? It seems you have to do this by creating a custom date and then just limiting it to one day.
I have found a posting on the Wrike website - https://www.wrike.com/blog/new-dependent-task-notifications-tasks-waiting-for-your-input/ - which says that you have to turn on email notifications to get alerts that tasks are ready for you - is there not a way to get this notification inside the Wrike platform? We have specifically chosen Wrike to try and move AWAY from internal emails.
It seems you can start on another task even if it is dependent on a previous task – isn’t the point of dependencies that it DEPENDS on something prior being completed?
With the above questions in mind, I feel like I might just be missing something on dependencies, not clear what they actually do? Except cascade delivery dates if you have dependencies with dates linked to custom milestones (which is great).

Thanks so much!

Kelli Wheelwright

It would be nice if you could choose whether or not to enable true dependencies on each project, perhaps when a project is duplicated or created.

For some processes, its not a big deal for things to be completed out of order. Other processes have a true critical path and it would be AWESOME to lock down the subsequent tasks and only open the next ones one at a time.

Like the above post, I have also found it frustrating that the milestones don't move with the reschedule dates of a project... I have found myself not using the Milestone feature at all.

Permanently deleted user

Hi all, just a quick update that might interest people here.

Yesterday we released a new update on the Timeline. Now you can mass reschedule them on the Timeline. Gaps between tasks are preserved when you reschedule tasks in this way.

More details available here in the Help Centre. For all feedback, it would be great if you could share your experiences here Your Feedback: New Timeline.

Thanks all 👍

Richard Loynds

We really would like to see this feature also. It seems pointless to make a task dependant if the systems still allows it to be worked on with no warning.

People working on tasks just want to see the work which needs to be done. Expecting them to view the timeline is a waste of time. In our company we are delivering tasks to peoples phones and looking at a timeline on a phone is cumbersome (and not available on IOS)

Is there any news on when this feature might be available?

Pascal Flamand

Is there any update about my original request here? I feel like it’s a no brainer to have it asap! Dependencies are useless without it for us.

Richard Loynds

Totally agree. This seems silly and is almost a showstopper for us which is a shame as the rest of the platform is great!

Nicole Harrison

We're in the same boat. As a project manager, some days half of my job consists of running around telling people to stop working on things because I noticed they marked a task as In Progress status when the dependencies aren't met. With our product, it's not immediately obvious when you start a task that the rest of the team hasn't done their part for yet. The oversight for this is a waste of my time, and it's a waste of my team's time when they're working on things they're just going to have to redo. We remind them on a weekly basis that they MUST check their dependencies, but it's cumbersome and not an intuitive process, and a year in it's still a regular problem for us.

Permanently deleted user

Hi all, thanks for you continued votes and input here. Speaking to our Product Team they understand this request make perfect sense, however, some enhancements need to be made to dependencies before this can be looked at. So, it will be looked at but I don't have any specific dates. Once I have more information, I'll be back here to update you 👍

Dan Birtwell

Seems to me as though this is a big issue. It has also not been resolved for 17 months ....?

Totally agree with comments above - dependencies are by nature dependent on other actions.

It causes a huge amount of "potential" work to show up, with no clarity on whether it is real or potential.

It also allows people to comment etc and move onto future steps without previous tasks being completed.

Wrike seems to lack any real "rules" (if, and, if not, then...etc)

Massive potential here & I think would really raise the bar against other competitors.

Disappointing that so many have requested this functionality and after so long still nothing (not even a suitable workaround)

Jeffrey Haines

I feel like there still needs to be a way to record information on the particular task marked as dependency not met for the assignee.

I like the ability to restrict the dependency from being completed or "officially started". Only the person who created the task can allow the assignee to actually complete said task if a dependency not met is in place for example.

But what if the assignee actually has valuable input or time spent on a task that is marked dependency not met?

Company X would like to let Task Creator know they have advance progress pertaining to "Task 2 - Dependency Not Met"

Do they just write that info on a piece of paper? They wouldn't be allowed to record progress. This then leads to an unnecessary email, message, or putting the information somewhere irrelevant to get attention to the news..

Joel Gold

Is there any update on providing a "locked dependency" feature to prevent tasks that are waiting for predecessors to complete from being started?

At a minimum there should be a way to filter out tasks that are waiting for predecessors form appearing as "overdue" on a dashboard, when it is not possible to start work on those tasks yet! Something like a a "Waiting for Predecessors" field with values of True or False

Deidra Stevens

Couldn't agree with Joel more!

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hey @all, thanks for your input here. For now I don't have an update on this feature suggestion, but I'll get back to you as soon as I have news 🙌

Andrew Slutzky

Hello Wrike Product Team,

Yes, I'd love to see this functionality as well!

Currently, my inbox gets flooded when I'm assigned a bunch of dependent tasks.

I simply mark all of the tasks as blocked.

I'd love to not be assigned these tasks until the dependencies have been completed.

Also, it looks like they are simply sitting in my name. It'll throw off SLAs if we start leveraging timers...

All the best,

Andrew