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Request: Duration as an Automation Condition

Jennifer Simpson

Sometimes tasks of short duration don't have the same automation needs as long tasks. For instance, if a task has a duration of 1 day or less than one week, I don't need everything to kick off.

However, duration is not a field you can use for conditions, and even if you create a custom field with a formula that pulls in the duration, it's not selectable as a condition.

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Comments

Carmine Tanya

@Jennifer Simpson Hi! Thanks for sharing this feedback! Could you maybe give me an example for more context? I might be able to provide further clarification or a workaround after understanding your request.

Jennifer Simpson

Thank you. As noted in the original post, the context is:

"Sometimes tasks of short duration don't have the same automation needs as long tasks. For instance, if a task has a duration of 1 day or less than one week, I don't need everything to kick off."

I felt this was generic enough to highlight the issue in a way that others would relate to, as my use case is somewhat specific. I will elaborate below.

Other Automation

I literally have hundreds of tasks open. They vary from 5-minute "I-could-do-in-my-sleep" tasks that either need to be done right away or when there's time to "this is a complex thing I must do on time in six months" and "this is something I should probably do in six months, but we'll see what happens when that day comes." Some require immediate execution. Some do not. Some are scheduled by me. Some are scheduled by others. Some are recurring, some are not. To avoid missing important deadlines and ensure tasks stay visible, I set up reminders.

Note that the "Field-Based" reminders mentioned below have a custom field in our setup. It's a checkbox option; multiple checkboxes can be selected at once.

Remind 1 Day Before the Due Date - Field Based: If the 1-day checkbox is selected, the automation adds a comment to the task that reminds all assignees that the task is due in 1 day. I don't personally use this, but I thought people on the team might.
Remind 2 Days Before the Due Date - Field Based: If the 2-day checkbox is selected, the automation adds a comment to the task that reminds all assignees that the task is due in 2 days. This is the one that I hoped would save me.
Remind 1 Week Before the Due Date - Field Based: If the 1-week checkbox is selected, the automation adds a comment to the task that reminds all assignees that the task is due in 1 week. Not one I use, but useful for the team.
Auto-Check Field-Based 2-Day Before Reminder By User: I personally want 2-day reminders on most of my tasks, provided the duration is longer than one week. I don't want the team to have to remember to check the box for me at scheduling, so this automation was supposed to look at the assignee. If it's me, it auto-checks the 2-day reminder box covered above.
- This was a fail and I shut it off because I can't tap into duration to control the flow of reminders. It was reminding me about tasks the second they were scheduled when they only had a 2-day duration. In essence, it flooded me with unnecessary reminders, gave me extra work, and made me blind to reminders that mattered.
- I also tried a suppression method. I created another automation that basically said "If the creation date is today, and the due date is this week, uncheck all field-based reminders" No dice. I never actually got it to work - it never unchecked the boxes at all - but even if it did, I the "due in 2 days" reminder would have already kicked off and reminded be before it got to the point where it could execute this automation.
- If I use other methods to control this, such as importance, effort, or task type, it would require that the entire team changes how they schedule things for just me, which is not ideal.
- Exclusions would solve this but they don't exist. See this other post:
  https://community.wrike.com/discussion/2953/request-is-not-exclude-functionality-in-automation-conditions?utm_source=community-share
Auto-Remind Task Overdue By User: This one is specific to me. If I'm assigned to a task, and the due date passes, it adds a comment reminding me to finalize the task or reschedule it. It's still super annoying to get a reminder that a task is overdue when it was just scheduled and it only had a 1 or 2 day duration, but it's less annoying than it was when I was getting the 2-day reminders on top of it.

Task Samples

Task A:
- Recurring: Repeats weekly
- Sample Task: Review weekly report and look for anomalies.
- Duration: 2 days
- My Actual Time: 5 minutes (I just have to do it within my 2- day window)
- Probability of Reschedule: Almost none. This task gets done like clockwork. Meeting the deadline is essential, but it's an easy one to meet.
- Scheduled By: Bot
- Start Reminder Needed: No; I get one when the bot schedules it
- Due Date Approaching Reminder Needed: No, I'm not forgetting about this task because it's 2 days long
- Due Date Missed Reminder Needed: No
Task B:
- Recurring: No; is manually scheduled 6 months in advance.
- Sample Task: Draft an article.
- Duration: 2 weeks
- My Actual Time: 1-2 full days of work
- Probability of Reschedule: Ideally none because if the deadline is missed, a fire starts.
- Scheduled By: Me, others on the team
- Start Reminder Needed: Yes, because if I don't get reminded the start date is approaching, I'm not starting it
- Due Date Approaching in 2 Days Reminder Needed: Yes, because if I'm distracted with other stuff, it's easy for me to forget the hard deadline is coming
- Due Date Missed Reminder Needed: Yes, because I've started the task apocalypse if I miss this deadline
Task C:
- Recurring: No; is manually scheduled 6 months in advance.
- Sample Task: Check and see if this tool we tested before is a viable tool yet.
- Duration: 2 days
- My Actual Time: 1 hour
- Probability of Reschedule: 100%. lol Odds are, I'm either going to see the task and go "I don't have time for that," or I will execute the task, verify the tool still doesn't work like it needs to, and reschedule the task 6 months out again.
- Scheduled By: Me, others on the team
- Start Reminder Needed: Yes, because if I don't get reminded the start date is approaching, I'm not starting it
- Due Date Approaching in 2 Days Reminder Needed: No, because I just received a kickoff reminder two days ago
- Due Date Missed Reminder Needed: Yes, because I need to reschedule the task at this point or our dashboard will become a sea of red with no visibility into what actually needs to be done.
Task D
- Recurring: No, manually scheduled
- Sample Task: Review an issue/incident report; determine course of action, resolve if possible.
- Duration: 2 days
- My Actual Time: Varies. Could take 5 minutes, could become a lengthy investigation or require additional time/ tasks to address.
- Probability of Reschedule: 50%; If the issue can be resolved quickly, it gets fixed right away. If not, the deadline may be extended.
- Scheduled By: Myself and others
- Start Reminder Needed: No, because if I didn't schedule it myself, I got a notification to start it when it was scheduled
- Due Date Approaching Reminder Needed: No, because it would remind me the second the task is scheduled
- Due Date Missed Reminder Needed: Yes, because I need to reschedule the task at this point or our dashboard will become a sea of red with no visibility into what actually needs to be done.

This may seem like a lot of info, but the point is that all of my problems could be solved if I could just use duration as a condition. That's the one thing that's persistent here.