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[From Wrike] Automation Rule New Action: Prefix, Suffix, Change Name 🤖

Juan Muttoni

Hello Community!

Has your team ever had a challenge working with naming conventions? Is manually adding prefixes or suffixes to new or existing items not an option for you? If so, we have great news… our new action in Wrike Automation has got you covered! 😁

Wrike has launched a new Change name action that allows you to change the item’s title in three ways: automatically categorize your items by adding prefixes, and suffixes or simply renaming them completely. 🤖

When creating a rule, you can find the three new options listed in the Change name action :

With this powerful enhancement, adding prefixes to new items is as simple as this:

Select the trigger “New item created”.
Select the condition “Change name” and choose the option “Add prefix”. Type the prefix you’d need to include in your item’s title.

Tip! Don’t forget to select a location where the rule applies to ensure that prefixes are set in the correct folder, like a specific Client folder or your Backlog.

And you’re done!

And what about already existing items? Easy! 😎 You can create an automation rule to automatically add the relevant prefix (or suffix) when a custom field is ticked.

By ticking the custom field, the prefix will be added to the item’s title:

We know that the idea to add prefixes and suffixes automatically has been quite popular among many of you so please show your excitement in the comments! And please feel free to drop any questions you might have about this new addition 🔥

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Comments

Juan Muttoni

Hi @Kat Charles, thank you for your feedback, I've shared your comment with our relevant team. Please, let us know if there's anything else we can help you with 🙂

Nicolas MONNIER

Hi there,
Any news on the "prefix / sufix from a given field" topic ? Like other people here, we have numerous projects and tagging each "generic task" in every project is burdensome, and the option presented here is not feasible as it would require a dedicated automation per project.

We need the automation (and/or the blueprint instantiation) to make use of a dedicated field.

Steve Pragel

I continue to try to find ways to more fully incorporate Wrike into my team's workflows, and this is another example of a functionality that could be greatly improved to make Wrike more applicable to our needs.

It appears that the way in which prefixes are currently applied by Wrike is through modification of each task/subfolder by appending the indicated text as part of the attributes name value. That would explain the disappointing result that when duplicating a project that already has prefixes, new prefixes append to the old ones. It would also explain why one is unable to easily update an existing project's prefix with a new value, such as a temporary ID that needs to be replaced with a permanent one upon project initiation.

The solution, as many others have mentioned, would be to have a project or folder attribute explicitly for Prefix. That value could have Settings to customize how the prefix is applied (e.g., checkboxes to apply to subtasks, subfolders, recurring tasks, etc.). The Prefix value could be amended at any time, including after duplication, and changing the value in that field would update all tasks/folders as indicated in "Prefix Settings". Finally, the value could be populated manually, or by using rules and triggers to automate the process.

As an example, I have a budget project with both unique and recurring tasks that repeats every fiscal year. I would like the prefix for the current project to be something like [BP-FY24]. Under the current method, when I duplicate that project for the next fiscal year, I would have to update every task name manually. Attempting to use the prefix option under duplication would result in tasks with names such as "[BP-FY25][BP-FY24] Update end of FY deadlines".

Using the method proposed would mean that either during or after project duplication I could edit the project attribute for "Prefix" from BP-FY24 to BP-FY25, and all impacted subtasks would automatically display as indicated in the prefix Settings for the duplicated project. This would work because the prefix is not actually part of the project/folder/task name, but something that is applied to the name as a prefix.

I will also repeat my appeal that Wrike considers user suggestions not only based on some arbitrary (and seemingly inconsistent) number of upvotes, but also on the merits of the need and usefulness in the context of project, task, and operations management.

Thank you.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi both, thanks a lot for your continued feedback here, we're passing it on to the dedicated team now 👍

@Steve Pragel There are thousands of suggestions here in the Product Feedback forum and most of them make a lot of sense, so we do need the tools of priorotization for sure. At the same time, as we mention often in different threads, all feedback, regardless of votes, always reaches responsible Product teams for consideration. We can't work on all, or even most of them, but we make sure our team hears all suggestions and any additional feedback here. Thanks again for letting us know your thoughts, we really appreciate it!

Patrick Gilbert

Adding my vote that it would be great if the platform did this natively.

Instead, I've had to create an API automation through Wrike Integrate that will, with a tick of a box, change all sub tasks and projects to have the same Prefix as the top most (project) folder. With hundreds of items in each project this saves a ton of time.

Sub note: I also have it updating all of the required custom fields at the same time, which is another thing I wish we could do natively out of RFs for example!

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Appreciate your detailed feedback @Patrick Gilbert, I'll send it to the team 👍

Nana Agyekum Bannor

Is there any update on this?
I chanced on this thread and this is exactly what i need.
I have an automation that creates sub projects based on the answer to a question that requires a number answer.
Projects are created corresponding to the number entered as the answer.
I would like the automation to dynamically use the title of the main project (name) as a prefix to the created sub projects.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi @Nana Agyekum Bannor, welcome to the forums! 👋

Can you please share a bit more detail on your setup? It would be great if you could also add some screenshots for visibility, that would help me to understand your case better. Thanks!

Edo Oliemans

Good discussion. I don't understand why such a sophisticated platform uses simple text prefixes in task names to identify/classify items. Apparently (and logically) there is a big need to have this improved in a more fundamental way to improve overall visibility to which projects tasks belong.

A similar fundamental approach could be setup for an automated WBS numbering as many platforms have. So adding a column with the 1.1 or 2.3.1 numbering based on the position and indentation of tasks in a project enabling to sort on that column if desired. But also here the standard approach seems to be manual text which is unmanageable when adding or moving tasks.

Caitlin Sullivan

Are there any updates on this?

For our use case, prefixes change for each project, so creating an automation rule to add a prefix using static text doesn't work. We could make this work if we were able to add a prefix from a custom field.

Rohan V

Hi @Edo Oliemans, Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback and suggestion. We'll ensure it is forwarded to the dedicated team for their visibility.

@Caitlin Sullivan, Hi, at the moment, we do not have any updates. Rest assured, if there is any progress in the future, I will inform you accordingly 👍

Kjetil Draugedalen

Please note another upvote for this function, the static prefix for subitems from blueprints makes no sense. A simple inheritance from the parent task will do the job for me, though, but it should be possible to assign whatever (custom) field you'd like.

Michaël Hugot

Please add my upvote to the feature request.

Another use case not mentioned yet, but terribly simple, is to cover for operator errors.

We have cases where the user made a mistake in the prefix when creating the project. Correcting across hundreds of tasks is quite a chore.

Rohan V

@Kjetil Draugedalen and @Michaël Hugot, Welcome to the Community!

Thank you both for adding your upvotes and explaining your use cases. Your comments will be forwarded to the relevant Product Team. If there’s any progress in the future, we’ll let you know 👍

Meg Rice

Another vote to add data from a field dynamically for the prefix/suffix.

Rohan V

Hi @Meg Rice, thanks for the +1 upvote! We'll pass your comment along to the relevant Product Team 👍

Daryl Lim

+1 vote for using data from custom fields for prefix/suffix

Rohan V

Welcome to the Community, @Daryl Lim! And thanks for the +1.
Your comment has been sent over to the responsible team now. If there's any update in the future, I'll make sure to notify you 👍

Ronen Bekerman

Seriously! This issue has not been resolved yet. You create all these fancy automations and neglect to make the Change Name field ready for variables?! This thread is ONE YEAR OLD by now.

Paula Barrientos

Please add my upvote for this. We really need it

Patrick Gilbert

Hi all,

Being a Wrike Partner, I'm happy to share that my company, Success Origin, has a solution for this. You can find me on the Wrike Partners page under Australian partners, so just send me a message if you need help!

Take care,

Patrick

Rohan V

Hi everyone 👋

Thank you all for your suggestions, feedback, and upvotes. I realize it’s disappointing when a desired feature isn’t available yet. As of now, I don't have any updates to share, but if there is any progress in the coming months, I’ll be sure to post an update here.

Charlotte Wicht

Hello, It's a shame that we can not say prefix parent tasks name...
I'm having a service desk and depending on some specification of the request it's with an automation add sub tasks from a blueprint with specific duration. But when it's come to rename the sub tasks the prefix or name define with the request from is not added to the subtasks and this occur a manual work for the team to add this request name to subtasks. I now when you create from blueprint you can add this prefix maybe one day we will have this option on the request configuration.

thanks

Rohan V

Hi @Charlotte Wicht, thanks so much for your feedback and for sharing your perspective. We understand how this can be challenging and have passed your comments on to the appropriate team for their review.

Katelyn Pullman

Adding my +1 here that this would be so valuable to update!

Melanie Lehr

We would need to have that as well, simply add a "take the name from the parent asset" field as formular + let us add some additional information to dedicated items, that should do it, perhaps. I create a simple project triggered by a form, reviewers have to review their language, parent asset name is set but subtasks name always only state Review IT, Review ES, etc. it is hard to distinguish what for if the task is on you and to change it manually is just a pain, but perhaps I also missed something...

Pam Leonard

New user. Another +1 vote for using data from custom fields for prefix/suffix.

Basudha Sakshyarika

Thanks for the feedback and upvotes, folks. I have passed your comments on to our Product team and will let you know when we have an update. 👍🏽

Andrea Fazio

Just chiming in here with another request to have a custom field be used as a prefix for automations!!
However for everyone else on this thread, I need to share a HUGE workaround that has changed my relationship with Wrike. I made a Scribe here: bit.ly/3N68JC4

Bryan Fishman

Plus 1 to this.

Also, it's super annoying that Wrike automatically adds a space after the prefix. I wanted to use this to automatically generate a link from a slug, e.g. put in the slug and the 'prefix' it with the rest of the URL. But the space breaks the hyperlink..

Rohan V

Hi @Bryan Fishman 👋

Thanks for adding your +1 here and for taking the time to explain your use case. We’ll make sure your feedback and this specific scenario are shared with the relevant team 👍