[Status: Investigating 🕵️] Allow Subtasks to Update Start and End Dates of Parent Tasks

@Stephen Orowe, thank you for the update!  We are currently evaluating Wrike for our team and this feature is one of the first questions we had during the introduction to Wrike meeting within our evaluation team.  I do hope this functionality is implemented in the very near future.

I agree, this will be critical in user adoption in our organization. If the parent task dates do not update automatically when there is a change in a subtask, we may need to look at using another program to manage timelines. 

Please keep us updated if there are developments. 

@All,

I may have found a workaround to this.  If the parent task is left as "Backlogged", it seems to update with the sub tasks start and end dates.  The limitation is that predecessors cannot be dependent on parent tasks, only sub tasks.  Let me know what you guys think.  Cheers!

The below screenshot just shows that parent tasks can overlap by changing the dependency of the sub-tasks.

@Trevor Tollefsbol,

Thank you for clarifying this countermeasure.

I could organize my thought clearly by your comment.

I also was knowing this function but I have not felt that it is nice countermeasure before because Parent tasks are managed as Backlogs in Wrike.

@Product Team

I felt that Trevor's idea  may become the shortcut for developing this function or explaining the detail of our request.

• I checked whether this function works for grandchild tasks (Sub-tasks of a Sub-task)  or not.
• This function worked in case of  the grandchild also, if we register the child task as Backlog.
• So, I guess this feature seems covering our request as the editing function of Gantt Chart.

The below are issues of the countermeasure of above.  If Wrike team can solve these issues, we may be able to close this thread, I guess.

[Issues]

1. If we add new tasks after registering other tasks, the new tasks are registered as One-Day tsak automatically, even if the authors set the default setting of new tasks as "Backlogged" in their profile setting. So, we have to change the type of Parent tasks to Backlogged manually.
2. Such kind of Parent-tasks are treated same with actual Backlogged. So, they appear on Dashboard as Backlogged or are filtered as Backlogged on all filters. We can't treat those as the scheduled tasks.

[Request (My Idea) ]

1. For #2 of the above.: Please treat such kind of tasks as the scheduled tasks, and set Start & End Date from Sub-Tasks automatically.
2. For #1 of the above.: Please change the type of tasks to the auto-scheduled task like as Request-1 automatically  when users add Sub-Tasks under it.
3. We can think that Project is the biggest parent task. So, please apply the same rule to Project also.
   *I guess we can fix the date range of Project by using milestones.

This is my thought.

Thank you.

Akira IT manager

Some great ideas for a workaround. I can’t have backlogged parent tasks hanging out there as it could up my analytics on types of tasks. Maybe I could create a different workflow label, but it would still be backlogged I suppose.

Also, in Trevor’s screenshots and the back and forth on this idea, am I seeing and understanding that the parent tasks only update in the Gantt? It appears that in the table they do not update. If they don’t update in the table, and in other views, this won’t work for me.

I am hoping this becomes a reality soon! We’ve had some staffing changes and had we had Wrike in production with this functionality, I wouldn’t be pulling my hair out as much realigning schedules and assignments.

As I'm going in circles, struggling trying to organize a complex project in wrike....

I've weighed in on this topic before, but I think in a separate thread, a long time ago.

We already know that fixing this would involve a major logic overhaul.  This all stems from the underlying logic architecture, from once-upon-a-time when Wrike didn't have subtasks yet (I think subtasks came around in 2015, roughly).

So, while considering MAJOR logic overhauls - Rather than directly addressing the parent/child logic, what if the dependency logic was overhauled instead?

Currently, dependency logic shifts entire tasks.  If dependency was linked to start/end dates instead, then you could achieve what everyone is talking about in this thread, just by setting things up a certain way in the gantt chart

Of course, this would have other unforseen ramifications that need to be considered as well.  So just a thought.

Dear Wrike -

Could you please provide us with an update on this?  It was stated in Stephen's post that the idea would be taken into consideration in the current quarter (that post was made in April) for addition to the roadmap.  So has this made it into the roadmap to be implemented in the near future? 

I'd be interested in knowing what else could possibly be more important than this feature considering it is the most voted item in the Product Feedback section and is a critical piece of project management functionality that is missing from the core Wrike product...Maybe once the Leads and Lags item is released, Wrike will get moving on this item?

Signed,

Still "Patiently" Waiting

Simply, as a default,  the subtasks start and end dates should update the parent task dates. But there should be a configuration option to turn this function off and/or a function to synch parent dates with subtasks when required if the auto update is turned off.

Thanks

Hi Megan, the team is continuing to gather analytics on how best to implement this feature. The team understands the importance and popularity of this request and we really appreciate everyone that voted and commented here.

Often during this investigation, it becomes clear that for this to be implemented correctly and to work seamlessly other features and developments need to be worked on first, which informs the Team's development roadmap. 

What I can promise you is that the team want to make this a reality as soon as possible and are working towards that goal. As always, we here on the Community Team are keeping a close eye on this for any new relevant information and progress so we share with you here.

Any updates on this item, Wrike team?  Will anything be announced at the user conference?  Sadly I can't justify attending due to our low use of Wrike at this point (mostly because of this missing feature and a few other critical components).  Would love to attend in 2019 if we can roll Wrike out to at least one department.

I agree with Megan.  The lack of this feature is a major impediment to Wrike being useful.  I understand that the team is gathering analytics but this thread has been open for more than a year and a half.  It's a big task but a necessary one if Wrike is going to scale sustainable with its user base.  If I can't create and maintain my schedule properly then all of Wrike's amazing reporting and analytics features are wasted.

Can we get a timeline for roll out?  I'm hesitant to begin large projects in Wrike without this feature.  

Thanks for throwing your support in, Jason!

I was a little disheartened when I saw that Wrike released the ability to change the "skin" on the UI instead of using that development time and resources to address more important features that are critical to the use of the system for so many users.  Not important for me to be able to change my background to a "cute" design when I can't even have my task dates rollup.

Would be nice to have a target date to look forward to for this functionality.  Until then I will keep waiting in the wings until the product works the way I need it to, or I find something else.

I agree with both Jason and Megan. If we can't even get the basic planning functionality, any other improvement is useless. And what can be any more basic than rolling up the subtasks to parent task! 

I can't understand Stephen's comment "continuing to gather analytics on how best to implement this feature"? This is such a basic functionality that there should be no other (or better way) to implement.

Thanks.

So I was checking out the latest wrike labs today, and what do I see?

After I checked my calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1, I tried it out.  The new right-click option called Item Rollup adjusts the parent task dates based on the subtasks, and unlike the subtask alignment feature it handles shrinking as well as growing.  There's also a Branch Rollup but as far as I could tell that does the same thing as Item Rollup.

Before everyone gets too excited though, notice this is "one-click" and not "fully automatic".  For this to really be useful, parent tasks should  always adjust/rollup by themselves.  That includes detecting subtask updates propagated through the task dependency chain.  Our company makes heavy use of templates, so a per-task option to enable that behavior would be ok.  But an account level opt-in would be better.

I'm happy to finally see some movement on this though, and look forward to the next iteration!

Nice find Dave!  I agree with your comments it should be fully automatic.  If you're conscious and thorough enough this is a big improvement.

Thanks to the dev team for this next step!

Is this new find something that had been previously introduced?

Sounds kinda familiar - see this comment from me on this post: https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000153945/comments/115002035589

If it's a new function, I don't think I can turn this on for my Wrike instance since we downgraded to the free version - I don't think Labs is available for free customers.

Anxiously awaiting Wrike's comment on Dave's find to know if this is something that's in the development pipeline, or functionality that had been previously introduced.

Just turned it on! Can't wait to see how it works. Great find, Dave!

@all, thanks for your continued comments and votes here.

Firstly, I'll explain a little more about the current Status within this post's title. Although the implementation of this function may seem straightforward, some detailed research must be undertaken to check how this might affect other back-end and front-end functionalities in the Workspace.

This takes some time and once we have more detail we'll be sure to update the status in the title and post here with the latest information available.

@Megan, this is a new experimental feature and a step in the right direction for this request. However, it's currently only available in Labs for Regular and External users on paid accounts. If you'd like to speak to someone about your account, let me know and I can arrange that 👍

Are we finally getting somewhere???

So I just re-upped my Wrike subscription.  We had downgraded to the Free version, but to do our due diligence to make sure that Wrike is OFF our shortlist of PM tools, we have subscribed to the Professional subscription (monthly basis).

In labs I enabled the New Table view. https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005778794-New-Table-View So the first thing I noticed which I am super excited about is that a subtasks dates, when edited within the New Table view update the parent tasks' dates!  This is HUGE for me, but there are some other things I noticed that still need work.

When a subtask's dates are updated in the New Table view, the parent task's dates are.  But moving over to the Gantt and the List view - the dates are not updated to reflect.  See my screenshots below and some other suggestions to improve the UI/experience.

So what's the scoop, Wrike???

Definitely need to autofill parent task dates based on its sub-tasks for our project managers.  

Wrike, any response to my 9/26 post and questions??

Any updates, Wrike, to my 9/26 post and questions?  What do we have to do to get an answer?  Hopefully all that are interested can "up vote" this comment to get some traction....

Hi Megan,

have you tried the "Roll up dates in Gantt Chart" functionality in Wrike Labs? While still a manual process, it allows you to update the parent task start/finish dates based on subtasks.

How many votes does the Wrike development team need to push this feature request over the investigating-implementing threshold?  I have a couple dozen users that I'll get to login wrike now and like this thread if it'll help?

Hey everyone, just popping in here to let you know that, as mentioned above, there's the Roll Up Dates on the Gantt Chart functionality, although not automatic, that exists now and also the New Table View that shows the start/end date of the earliest/latest planned Subtask. There's no update to make the automatic roll-up at the moment, but I really appreciate your support for the feature and I understand where you're coming from with this - please know that this is the subject that is constantly brought up during various discussions.

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

This would be a great piece of automation, differentiator for you guys as a lot of other tools don't offer this, but needed in the market.  In particular, if the parent is not a "real" task itself but just a container for the subtasks.  Similarly, a project could have the same automation once all its tasks are done.

Really hoping you guys will make this happen!

Al - If the parent isn't a "real" task, and is just a container... could you use a folder/project?  for both, the dates can dynamically change based on the tasks inside of it.  Just asking, since those are wrike's explicit 'container' elements. 

I'm always on the fence about this requested feature. 🤔

I can see use cases for it (parent task = result of subs) and other use cases where it would hurt (you want the parent to be a unique entity).  And if you make it a user-option to turn on/off for every task, you're making Wrike even more complicated.  Not to mention, it could be a huge development nightmare to implement

Sam, good points.  In fact I am most interested in a Project closing with automation when its tasks are complete, which is another topic I've weighed in on:

https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115004498989-Auto-Completion-of-Project-when-all-tasks-are-completed

There are a few related threads on that subject in fact...

I see your point.  In fact, I have just moved from Jira which did not do this well - Epics are not containers, but actual "issues" and belong to a project, can't live on their own, etc.  I came to see them as basically tasks, and lower level "issues" as subtasks.  Wrike has the best hierarchy I've seen in any project management app thanks to the ability to have two types of containers - projects and folders.  And we have subprojects, which work well, so you can easily make a quick subproject containing just a few tasks for a "body of work."  This would be a great example of where closing with automation when the tasks were all moved to "done" would be very useful.

So, to close my thought, if we got the ability to close Projects when tasks were done, and this didn't come to fruition, I would probably be OK with it.

Sam, sorry one more point of feedback.  I have tested ClickUp extensively - but stayed with Wrike due to the super flexible hierarchy.  ClickUp has a useful feature that simply asks a user who is trying to close a task with unfinished subtasks if they really want to do that:

It's a relatively simple setting, so I don't think it complicates the tool much at all.  

This also pops up if there is another assignee, so one assignee doesn't close without getting prompted to insure the other assignee has also done his/her part of the task. 

I think this would be a useful feature to replicate in some format.

Thanks!