Automation rules between task and project items
Currently, you cannot setup automation rules to cross between task items and project items and would be really helpful if you could in order to create a more cohesive connection between the tasks and the project they are part of.
This limitation leads many of our wrike users to not have a clear understanding of how tasks are connected to projects (includes all of our corresponding custom item types) and therefore either the tasks are not up to date and/or the project is not up to date and they end up not being in sync. This then causes our small team of project managers to use resources to manually keep both projects and task items up to date and ensure we have data integrity so reporting, dashboards, boards, calendars, etc. are correct. I realize we also have some training issues as well and we are working on that but additional automation rules would make it so much easier and would cut out a ton of time spent on these manual activities. I also want to acknowledge that Wrike Integrate is a potential solution as well but it is not a user friendly tool and it requires dedicated technical resources which not everyone has so for this post let's exclude that as an option.
Use Case examples:
- We do a lot of content development so we have a writing custom item task type (CIT task), a production CIT task, and a Proofing CIT task. When each one is completed, we want to check it off on the project in order to show high level that writing is done, production is done, and/or proofing is done. This can go for any project that has specific milestones that need to be met during the duration of the project and would be really helpful to connect project CIT fields (custom and standard) to specific task CIT types as well as task fields (custom and standard).
- A Go Live Milestone CIT task is in the project in order to anchor all dependencies to and quickly call out if schedule/timeline changes will impact the launch deadline. We also have this date listed on the project CIT so we can report on it from a high level. The issue is we have to remember to update both the Go Live CIT task AND the go live project field if we change the date and often times they are mismatched.
- Certain task CITs status being used to dictate the project status. So if the writing CIT task is in supervisor review, then we want the project status to flip to "Supervisor Review" to reflect writing is done and it is in review.
- We have a "Stage" custom field on our project items for our product development process covering requirements, development, testing, launch, etc. and then we also have product backlog tasks that represent the dev work item types. We want to be able to connect the product backlog tasks to the overall project stage field - so once the product backlog items enter development then we want that to flip the project "Stage" field to "Development" which we then report on all projects based on stage. Right now, we have to manually flip this based on where the tasks are and is often not updated in real time and/or timely.
We have other examples but overall we need more connection between task items and project items.
Hi Tyler Harrison,
Thank you for your detailed feedback and the use cases you've shared. It's clear that enhanced automation will significantly enhance your operations and improve task-project correlation in Wrike. We appreciate you taking the time to detail this for us and we've passed your feedback on. Let's hope other Community members too see the benefit 🙂
Elaine Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Aprenda sobre as funcionalidades e melhores práticas em Wrike com o nosso Treinamento Webinar Online
Elaine Wrike Team member Aprenda sobre as funcionalidades e melhores práticas em Wrike com o nosso Treinamento Webinar Online
Adding to this that being able to select a certain CIT as an "And If" condition would be helpful in cases where the tasks under a project may be using different workflows. For example, we have specific workflows for Design Tasks and Print Production Tasks. The rule I want to create on the Project CIT is that when status changed to Received, tasks based on Design Task CIT change to "Design Mgr Review" (from the Design workflow) and tasks created from the Print Production CIT change to "Received" (from the Print workflow). The current configuration doesn't allow the rule to apply to specific subitem CITs.
Hi Natalie Hadley, thank you for sharing your use case with us and for your feedback. I've passed your comment on to our Product Team and we will keep you updated if we're informed of any improvements 👍
Please, let us know if there is anything else we can help you with.
Hi all! I upvoted this but wondered if there was any movement or alternative options created in the last year? I haven't found one.
Hi Eric Fiero, thank you for upviting this suggestion. We don't have updates about this one at the moment, however, as soon as we have news to share, please rest assured that we will let you know in this thread 👍