Showing subtasks in Dashboard when also on parent task

Hi Aaron, thanks for your question and welcome on board the Community! When you create your Dashboard widget, you need to check the box 'Include tasks from subfolders' as shown in the below screenshot.

After saving the widget, and while reviewing your Dashboard, you will see a number in the left corner of tasks that have subtasks. This number indicates how many subtasks a parent task has. Click it and it will expand and show the subtasks. Check out the below example GIF. If you have any questions, I'm here to help!

But is it possible to only show the subtask itself in the dashboard? e.g. I have a task with 4 subtasks. The whole task has a time range from yesterday till the end of January. The subtasks are all due in the future. This means that I do not have a (sub)task to do today. But still the parent

task is shown in the dashboard. When I expand the task I see the subtasks, but they are all in te future. So in my opinion this task should not be mentioned in the widget for TODAY.

In case the subtask is due today, it does not appear itself, but only the parent task.

Only when the subtask is overdue, it appears in the widget without the parent.

Stephanie Westbrook

Hi Martine, I tried this out and created widgets for tasks due today or next month and depending on the task due dates, the widget showed either only tasks without their subtasks or just subtasks without their parent tasks. Could you let me know what filters you're applying so we can figure out what's going on?

I already see what is happening. I did not use the standard widget TODAY, but a custom widget of a Folder. In that widget it shows first which tasks are for today and that shows only the parent task. But when I use the standard widget it shows the subtask.

Thanks for the help.

Stephanie Westbrook

@Martine Glad it's all figured out! You should be able to use Custom Widgets to show just tasks/subtasks without parent tasks depending on what the filters are. Let me know if anything else comes up!

Travis Premo

I too am having this problem. I cannot see the subtasks that are due without expanding the parent task; and the parent task's due date is what dictates the tasks position in the widget (sorted by due date). How can I make the subtasks appear in the dashboard without their parent so we don't miss the subtask deadlines?

Thank you!

Hi Travis, thanks for posting. This really depends on the criteria you select while building the Dashboard, and whether that criteria meet the details of the parent task.

For example:
If you are creating a Dashboard to show tasks within a certain date range, and you have selected a date for the parent task, then this parenting task will show on the Dashboard. If you don't specify a date on the parent task it won't show up in this Dashboard, but the subtasks will still show there because their scheduled dates still meet the criteria you've specified.

If you can expand on what filters you've chosen, I can help further 👍

Глеб Аитов

Stephanie Westbrook,

"You should be able to use Custom Widgets to show just tasks/subtasks without parent tasks depending on what the filters are"

How? )

I have a parent task, say "New Brand Arrival: Brand A", located in "Content" folder

It has following subtasks (actions):

-make a photo

-write a text

-publish online

Is there way to create dashboard to show all subtasks from folder "Content" and not to show the parent task "New Brand Arrival: Brand A"? This is becuase the parent task is not a pure task, it is used to group subtasks under common context.

Also, is there way that this peren't status changes upon the status of all of it's subtasks? Like in the folowing way:

- if all subtasks are in ToDo, that the parent task is in ToDo

- if at least one subtask is not in ToDo and not all of the subtasks are Completed, that the parent task is In Progress

- if all of the subtasks are Complete, than the parent is Complete

Thank you!

Hi guys, just jumping in here to shed some light on this.

What Stephanie is saying above is; depending on what filters are chosen, only Subtasks can be shown. However, to be clear, there is no filter you can choose specifically for showing subtasks only.

If you had a specific Custom Field you only used for subtasks then you could use this Field to filter out parent tasks. So for example, I add a checkbox Custom Field called 'Subtask' and ticked it on each subtask. I can now create a Dashboard of only subtasks by filtering by tasks that have this Custom Field checked.

I think you're looking for a pre-built filter like 'Show subtasks only', this is not available but it would make a great request in the Product Feedback section 👍

I've brought up this issue before and I'm still hoping for a workaround (or a fix).
In the dashboard, subtasks are not shown separately from parent tasks -- even if they have a due date that is sooner than the parent task.

So my team and I keep missing tasks because we are on the top-level and subtask and the subtask isn't showing up independent of the parent task . . .

I have been told before that we can avoid it by not being on the top-level and subtask, but there are a number of cases where we have to be, so that "workaround" doesn't work for us.

I've attached an image where you can see that the parent task is showing up under "Assigned to Me" for May 18th, with the long overdue subtask showing up collapsed underneath (so it can be missed). It shows up on "My Overdue Tasks" in the next column, but by then it's already overdue . . .

I'm using the "Tasks Assigned to Me" widget to see everything due -- not just a defined time frame.

Mauricio Freitas

I have just spent half morning trying to figure out why one of my users couldn't see a task - only to realise it was a subtask of a task where said user was assigned to both items.

There should be an option to automatically expand all tasks/subtasks. As it is some are "invisible" if the person doesn't know to look for it.

Any updates Wrike Team?

I'm still waiting for the ability to see subtasks independent of parent tasks on the dashboard if they are due sooner.

This is still a huge issue that is still causing my team and I to miss a lot of tasks . . .

Hi Dave, and everyone! Thanks for the continued conversation around this, it really helps us understand how you want to use this feature.

Currently, the Dashboard is designed to show tasks and subtasks that meet the Filters specified, not the item type e.g. task or subtask.

As a type of workaround and to illustrate how it works; if you create a Dashboard from a Project/Folder and only want to see it's subtasks you could set the parent task to a status you are not including in your Custom Dashboard's Filter.

For example, if I create a Dashboard from a Folder and set the filter to show 'All Active' tasks and then change the parent tasks in that Folder to a status in "On Hold/Cancelled/Completed" status group, then I'll only see the available 'Active' subtasks on my Dashboard. This is because these are the only items that meet my filter requirements - the parent task is no longer 'Active'.

I hope that helps a little. I think what would be a good solution is if there was a Custom Dashboard that showed only Subtasks - if this is the case, please raise a Product Feedback request for our Product Team to review and so members can upvote it. Thanks so much and any questions, please let me know 🙂

Travis Premo

I do not agree with the idea of a subtask dashboard. A subtask is a task. Period. How we use tasks/subtasks/folders/projects in each of our environments should not affect whether the subtask is visible when it needs to be visible. If a task or subtask has a due date, it needs to appear in the dashboard so that it doesn't get missed. Like others on this thread, I can't tell you how many times this has caused our team to miss something.

I think this becomes even more relevant with Wrike's latest improvements to the Gantt chart and list views, with respect to indenting/outdenting/drag-and-dropping into tasks).

As far as raising a Product Feedback Request, this hasn't already been done? I want avoid a redundant request.

Travis hit the nail on the head.

This is not a request for a separate dashboard or view.

We just need to see any task (whether subtask or parent task) appear on the dashboard according to its due date.

It is ludicrous that subtasks due before their parent tasks are only visible under the parent task that can have a due date much later so the subtask is missed!

Mauricio Freitas

Agreed with Travis and Dave. We do not need another dashboard or widget. A task is always a task, subtask or not. The dashboard should show each one independently because they are units of work - the collapsed view that is there now just hides tasks and people miss them completely - as in my own real world experience has shown.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I don't want to duplicate Feedback requests either - it really doesn't help our Product Team.

I think this one from Dave is a good place to begin voting and adding your use cases. Alternatively, I can convert this post to a Feedback post.

For now, it would be great for me, the relevant Product Team and other members here to hear any workaround people are using to avoid missing Subtasks. Thank you 👍

Workarounds - as much as possible my team and I try to make sure an individual isn't on both the parent and subtask. Also, I try to make sure the parent task has a due date of the earliest possible subtask due date.

These are not good solutions, though because:

It is easy to forget and end up on a parent and subtask
Having a parent task due at the same time as the earliest subtask due date doesn't make sense and the date has to be constantly adjusted
What's the point of having a subtasks if they can't be viewed independently from their parent task from a due date perspective in dashboards?

I use the parent task to track the due date of an overall project, and the subtask dates for the individual tasks in the project -- of which I may be assigned to both.

Here's an example:

My workaround is NOT to use subtasks!!!

Either I make a project with tasks or I make one task with "tasks" with checks in the description. This latter solution is only possible if I can set one date.

Thanks for taking the time to share guys. I understand these workarounds are not ideal for you now but they can be incredibly useful for our Product Team to understand how enhancements can be made, and hugely beneficial to other members!

Looking forward to hearing some more best practices people are using 👍

Kelsey Waara

I am having a similar issue unfortunately.

My team and I are trying to utilize subtasks on the Wrike platform, but unfortunately I've been running into some issues trying to utilize this. For example, we have a large collaborative task called Tool Selector. I created several subtasks for each person assigned to Tool Selector. One task I marked as "Needs Immediately" to remind myself that that task was due soon this week, although the rest of the tasks are not needed so soon.

The way I have my widget set up is to display "In Progress", "Needs Immediately", "Prioritized this Week", "Design in Progress", "Copy in Progress", and "Implementation in Progress" all together in one column.

Unfortunately, the Tool Selector subtask I had marked as "Needs Immediately" remained under the "In Progress" task of Tool Selector, and I almost missed the deadline for this subtask.

It would be nice if subtasks that have a different workflow from the parent tasks were not displayed directly under the parent task. It would be great if it got pulled out so I could easily see that I had a subtask that is needed immediately.

I read through some of the workarounds but I agree that it seems like the best workaround is to just not use subtasks at this time

Any updates on this Stephen?

Wrike used to be so fast with fixes so I was really hoping this would be something delivered within a few months.

Please don't be like Salesforce and have critical items left for years . . .

Is anyone from Wrike monitoring the forums these days?

Hi Dave, very sorry for the delay getting back. I've been trying to gather the latest information regarding this request.

The team is aware of a solution that's needed here. Right now, the Product Team is reviewing the work for the coming year and this has come up in the discussion. I'm hoping to know more information once 2019 roadmap has been defined a little more across Product and UX teams.

I'm moving this post to the Product Feedback section so if everyone here interested can please upvote the original post so we can track the popularity of the idea for the team's review. Once I have more information I'll be back here to update you.

Can you please work to prioritize this?

"2019" is a very vague and large timeline. Given that this shouldn't be a radical redesign or entirely new feature it would be great to see a fix come in, say, January 2019.

Again, I truly see it as a bug or unexpected behaviour of a feature -- not some desired new feature. I would truly appreciate it if it were prioritzed as such.

The possible solution seems simple, either:

Roll up the subtasks to the parent tasks on the dashboard BUT show the parent task as overdue if any of its subtasks are overdue (so people can drill down to see what's overdue)
Allow for a setting or separate dashboard widget that shows all tasks sequentially by due date NOT rolled up to parent tasks

It seems like it's just a dashboard setting / view that needs to be adjusted, nothing more fundamental than that.

Joshua Balentine

I made this comment on a post that got flagged as this post's duplicate, so I'll put the comment here as well.

I see the use for this (treating sub-tasks no differently than parent tasks; not collapsing sub-tasks under parent tasks). I want this from time to time as well. However, sometimes I want even more identification of sub-tasks than there currently is on dashboards. For some situations, I want subtasks listed independently, and others, I want to group and hide related tasks together to de-clutter my dashboard.

Perhaps this could be a setting on the widget?

Joshua Balentine

Hey @Stephen,

Is there an action item to vote on here? I send a list of community posts around inside my organization for folks to vote on, but while this thread has quite a few comments, the original post doesn't seem to be oriented towards changing something and doesn't have the votes I would expect from the other activity.

I saw the link to Dave's post about the "Assigned to Me" widget, but I'd like to see something like this on custom widgets too.

Josh, you can vote by upvoting and following this thread and by voting on the thread here too:

/hc/en-us/community/posts/115002149445--Assigned-to-Me-Dashboard

I wonder why it is taking such a long time to solve this problem. I see that already in august 2017 (1,5 year ago!!!) this was mentioned. It also seems that enough people have the same problem. So when is this function going to be developed?