Mass actions: Changing tasks titles or prefixes

Hi Team!

We need to change task titles in mass quantities beyond the duplication of templates.

It would be much faster and easier to utilize mass actions and select all the tasks you wish to change the name, prefix, or even ending.

This would help our process greatly!!

Thank you,

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On hold

Status: On hold

Comments

LB Kemp

I agree. We use templates and duplication extensively. Being able to append a suffix would be greatly appreciated

Kelli Wheelwright

Id be interested to learn how you are using the current prefixes if at all. I haven't found a good use for even that feature yet. Always open to ideas though.

Debbie Brownlie

We have job numbers so we use prefixes to indicate which job the task belongs to

Debbie Brownlie

We have job numbers so we use prefixes to indicate which job the task belongs to

Derek Loganbill

We use a template when launching new projects and the prefix option is great. We use it to add the project name in front of every task. However, we have had a few instances where the project name needed to be later modified. It would be great if there were a way to mass edit the prefix.

Soraya Jung

I completely agree with this! We also use a template when starting a new project and the prefix option is great for adding the projects name to every task. However, when doing this all the subprojects are also renamed with the prefix (not what we want!). If we could just mass edit the tasks instead and add the prefix in that way it would be perfect. Eventually, every project name also gets an internal company code added to it - when the time comes these are currently manually updated in each task prefix. Again, if we could mass edit tasks for these scenarios it would save us a real headache!

Soraya Jung

Running into the problem EVERY DAY so it's starting to drive me crazy, especially when I see Wrike Labs developing "Improved List Views" which are absolutely not helpful (re: latest release 'Improved List View Navigation).

As explained before, we have project templates with subprojects within them. Each of those subprojects has several tasks. We want to add a prefix to all the tasks within the project but have the option NOT to have the prefix at the Project/Subproject level. Can Wrike please look at making an option to choose where the prefix is added (i.e. Project vs Tasks) when duplicating a project.

Trevor Molag

I found an acceptable workaround, which is to export the project to Excel, do a search and replace on the Excel file, and re-import.

https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/articles/210324125-XLS-Export-and-Import#import

Soraya Jung

@Trevor When you do this, I assume you delete the original tasks prior to importing the relabelled ones?

Or when you import, is there a way of keeping all existing history (comments, attachments, etc) and just the title is updated?

If the latter is possible the work around would definitely be useful.

Thank you!

Trevor Molag

In my case I was starting a project from scratch, so I did not need to keep any history. Reading your issue in detail, I can see how my workaround might not be useful for your use case! 😕 sorry

Melissa Jones

YES PLEASE!!! WE use a blueprint to create our new projects when we bring on a new client (every project has the same set of tasks so it is imperative to differentiate which client it belongs to). Sometimes, when the Admin sets up the original folders- the prefix is way too long and needs to be shortened. Therefore- it would be REALLY beneficial to be able to do the mass edit of the prefix on all tasks.

Sylvia Gaggioli

Currently facing the same issues. iPhone updates are great - but when you have 40 projects all with the same tasks the iPhone app is not practical.

Joey Lopez

We are running into this frequently as well. we need a SKU/part# as a prefix for each task and project title, and projects must start before we have them, with a placeholder like XXXX or "abbreviation 05" - later, we need to be able to search for all tasks quickly, we've tried using custom fields, but the exact same problem happens there - there is no way to mass edit/populate.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all the feedback that you've provided here!

I've checked with the team, and unfortunately, this is not something they can fit in their short-term plans. I'll keep you updated once I hear any news.

Just in case that can help some users, I'd like to mention the recently added feature available in the Table view that allows to mass edit cells: https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005778794-Table-View#edit

Desiree Dixon

My team has the same issue. I've had several questions from them about ability to change prefixes. We use blueprints a lot, and we use prefixes so that the folks who might be juggling several projects can see which project that task is for at a glance. Sometimes people want to be able to change them or add them after having already launched projects and updated statuses and information on tasks.

Not all team members love the prefixes. Sometimes they can clutter up a list of tasks, so that all you see are the prefixes, but not what you need to do! The ability to toggle whether or not you can see the prefix could be useful.

Jenny Tu

I can't agree more! It very much depends on the team member's role with the different projects and whether the prefix information would be helpful to that individual in monitoring tasks. It would be great to have a user level toggle!

Elaine McDonagh

Hi @Desiree Dixon, @Jenny Tu, thanks for adding to the discussion here, we appreciate your insights!

As Lisa mentioned, there are no plans for this at the moment, but if that changes we'll be sure to let you know here. If you need help with anything else, don't hesitate to ask.

Michelle Holbrook

I am glad to see I am not the only one running into this scenario. Our process for managing CPG projects always involves a change in name to the project halfway through the project life cycle. Due to this need, we are currently copying and pasting 70-100 tasks and subproject titles to keep the project up to date. With a current load of 70 projects in flight at any given time, that is a very time consuming process. I was really hopeful there would be a ctrl f replace functionality similar to excel.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Thanks a lot for reaching out and sharing your use case and feedback here @Michelle Holbrook! I'm passing it on to our Product team 👍 Please make sure to upvote the original post above if you haven't yet - the number of votes helps the team understand how popular the suggestion is. Here's more detail on that, but please let me know if you have any questions!

Matthew Amoss

This problem is a constant issue for us. We pay for software like Wrike. I don't want to pay someone to be individually adding prefixes to task titles. This should be a click of a button.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Thanks a lot for your feedback @Matthew Amoss!

This idea will soon reach the 60 upvotes threshold, and we'll add one of our Product statuses here 👍

Casey Keough

For large product development projects and flexibility in general, this is essential. Renaming dozens of tasks or creating a fresh project for a model number change or similar but different project spin-off is a major shortcoming.

Cansu Yetisgin

Hi @Casey Keough, thank you for chiming in here and sharing your use case. I'm passing it on to our team👍🏼

Aaron Gerlach

Agree @Soraya Jung, your description is exactly the functionality that is needed!

Daisy Hibbard

With the new addition of subtask prefixes when creating a task from a blueprint, I would love to see the option to mass-edit prefixes. Use cases in the last month:

Changed the order of a video series that have episode numbers associated with them. We had three tasks already created so they would show up on the Calendar for team planning purposes. Options were to manually update the episode number on 20 subtasks per task or delete the task and create a new one from our blueprint.
Changed the name of a new product which impacted several tasks and subtasks. Had to manually update it all and it took about 45 minutes.

Just having an option at the task level in the 3-dot menu that said "Update prefix" would be a great start! Also having this on the Mass edit feature would be super helpful too, that would avoid having to drill down into each task.

We like having prefixes on subtasks because the creative team especially ends up with the same subtask name across multiple types of deliverables. So for example, a copywriter would have just seen "Write copy" on their "To Do" view or a dashboard, but write copy for WHAT? Now with prefixes it's super easy to see what deliverable it's associated with (which specific blog, video, FAQ, ad, etc).

Cansu Yetisgin

Hi everyone, thank you for sharing your use cases and feedback here. We're checking with our Product team to assign a status here🙋🏻‍♀️

Cansu Yetisgin

Hi everyone, the team has confirmed that this request is currently in the backlog, so I've updated the status here to reflect this.

I know this might come as disappointing news, but the team is focused on the implementation of other updates and features that take priority and as such, there are no plans for this at the moment.

I'd encourage anyone who is interested in this feature to continue to vote here, the more votes a suggestion has, the more we know how popular and sought-after a request is. You can see more about how we work with Product Feedback in this post.

Thank you for your feedback and the support shared here.

Kelsey Ireland

Wrike team — seeing the update this morning that this is now in backlog which, I agree Cansu, is disappointing. With the addition of Upvotes from this separate but similar feature request (/hc/en-us/community/posts/115002137149--Status-Not-planned-How-to-mass-edit-and-rename-projects-and-tasks-) would be great if those upvotes & comments compiled to an accumulative number of users interested in this feature for the Wrike team to consider. Thanks for taking a close look!

April Russell

This feature would add a ton of value to our operations team and Wrike process.

Heather Chappell

This one change would be a huge timesaver as a project manager and can't wait to hear that it is ready to roll. Thanks!