How to break a task down and put it in order

Two features on a task get confused, so here they are side by side. A sub-task is a step inside one job, and a blocker is a different job that has to finish first. Both live on the task panel, covered in How to edit a task.

When do you want each one?

Use a sub-task when the work is one deliverable with parts. "Autumn lookbook" with "Book the studio" and "Brief the retoucher" under it is one job that several people chip at.

Use a blocker when two separate jobs have an order. "Cut the sample" cannot start until "Lab dip approved" is done, and both are real tasks, perhaps owned by different people in different departments.

The test is ownership. If finishing the small thing matters to nobody outside the job, make it a sub-task.

How do you add sub-tasks?

Open the task and type into Add subtask… in the Subtasks section of its panel, then press Enter. The box clears and stays ready, so you can type several in a row.

Each sub-task row has a circle to complete it and a small avatar button to assign it, both without opening anything. You can also add sub-tasks while creating the task, per How to create a task.

Adding a sub-task needs the Create tasks row on Settings › Permissions in the task's department. Members have it by default.

What does a sub-task's own panel show?

Click a sub-task's title and it opens in its own panel. The arrow at the top left (Back to parent task) returns you to the parent.

The line at the top of the panel reads department, project and campaign, then the parent task's name as a link. A sub-task follows its parent's project, so its panel has no Project row.

Sub-tasks go one level deep. A sub-task's panel has no Subtasks section of its own, which keeps a list easy to scan.

Where do sub-tasks show up?

On the parent's row and its board card as a count chip, so you can see at a glance which jobs have loose ends. On a department's List tab they sit indented under their parent.

On a board, and on a project's List tab, only top-level tasks appear; open the parent to reach its sub-tasks. Sub-tasks still count toward a project's progress bar, so a project half done in sub-tasks reads as real progress.

How do you tell which job a sub-task belongs to?

On a list that shows it on its own, such as Work › My tasks, a sub-task's row ends with its parent's title after a dot. "Email · Back to school" is the Email step of the Back to school task.

Typing the parent's title into the Search tasks or customer box finds its sub-tasks too. That is the quickest way to see every step of one job that has landed on you. See How to see what needs you for the rest of My tasks.

How do you say one task is waiting on another?

Open the task that has to wait. Under Add blocker, type into Search tasks to block on… and pick the task it needs. Each result names its department, so a task can wait on work in another team.

The panel then shows a Dependencies section with two lists. Waiting on is what this task needs first, and Blocking is what is waiting on this one. Every entry is a link, so you can walk a chain either way.

Remove a blocker with the X beside it under Waiting on. Adding and removing blockers needs the Mark tasks as blocked by other tasks row on Settings › Permissions, which members have by default.

How can you see what is blocked?

A blocked task's row and board card show a Waiting on N badge, counting only the blockers still unfinished. Finish a blocker and the count falls on its own.

On any task list, Add filter… then Blocked narrows the list to Waiting on something or Not blocked.

What happens when you finish something that is still blocked?

Tideswell asks first. Completing a blocked task opens Complete blocked task?, and moving one to another status opens Move blocked task?. Press Complete anyway or Move anyway to go ahead, or Cancel.

The person doing the work often knows more than an order recorded last month, so the prompt informs and leaves the call to you.

The bar for changing many tasks at once leaves blocked tasks as they are and tells you so. See How to change many tasks at once.

How do you know when a task is no longer blocked?

When the last blocker on a task assigned to you is finished, a line saying it "is no longer blocked" lands in your Work › Inbox. You do not have to watch for it.

A blocker that is archived stops counting too, so the Waiting on badge falls the same way.