Is there a way to (or a powerup to) have threaded comments?

Question

Having a single card for every task can make a single feature turn a trello board into a hectic warzone.  That's why checklists are awesome to have sub-tasks.  The only problem is, when working on sub-tasks and collaborating around them the only way to do so is to comment in a single stream meaning you have to reference each subtask manually to try to connect your comment to the sub-task which is super time consuming and hectic too (here's an example of a recent comment like this I just posted that made me finally do some research and ask the community for some much needed help.

Most other proj mgmt tools like Asana or Monday have this and so do communications tools like Slack so I have to imagine there is a way to do this in Trello but for the life of me I can't figure one out.

Can anyone point me in the right direction here?

(And if there is no solution, Trello team I beg of you...I love you with all of my heart but can you please build either Whatsapp style checklist threaded 'replies' to keep convos about a specific checklist item in one thread or create checklist/sub-task threading?)

Iain Dooley · Answer

@Adam Hollander firstly, this is the community I'm not an Atlassian employee.

Secondly are you creating linked cards for each sub-task/fix or are you just creating checklist items?

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-articles/Trello-Subtasks-with-Butler/ba-p/1060392

If you subtask with linked cards in your checklist then you can discuss each thing individually and still track progress from the parent card. I think this is much better than trying to keep everything on one card.

Lastly, if you do need to thread discussion on a single card, you can do it similarly to how you interleave email replies, just put a ">" at the start of lines to indent (">>" indents more) here is an example:

>> This is the original comment

> This is a reply to it

This is a reply to the reply

>> This is part of the original comment and it will go so long that it will spread over two lines BUT I only have to put one indent at the start of the line, I don't have to split the lines and indent each one

> Oh, thanks that's a good tip

No worries, I aim to please

This is how it turns out:

You can see other markdown code here:

https://help.trello.com/article/821-using-markdown-in-trello

Adam Hollander · Answer

Just imagine even this forum without comment threading, it would be one giant unmanageable list.  Vs if I want to reply to your message here (Vs all messages on this thread...assuming there were lots) i would have to somehow indicate to you that i am replying specifically to your comment but even then it would get lost in a see of other comments that may have already moved on to other topics.

Here's an example of Slack threading

Have to imagine you know what I mean here though almost every proj mgmt or communication tool has comment threading or referencing ahah

Adam Hollander · Answer

Thanks for the reply Lain, just to clarify for example:

* We have dev tasks
* Those tasks then go into QA where a given task can have 20 QA feedback items/fixes which we add to a checklist
* Let's say developer A has a question about #16, there is no way to have a thread about that particular checklist item so dev A has to manually reference the checklist item in his comment
* Then QA engineer has to read the comment, scroll back up to the list to see what #16 was
* This gets super hectic with a single piece of feedback but now with 20 items imagine either a) having to constantly copy paste a full checklist item just to reference it for context as the commenter or (b) as the reader having to keep scrolling up and down on the card to reference checklist items

The response I might imagine you'll say is "why not have one card per qa item".  The answer is bc qa items are small and there are lots of them and they relate to a specific dev task.  So if we did it this way (which we tried initially) then new issues appear (1) dozens or hundreds of cards making the board chaotic AF or (2) there is a new constant clicking and referencing bouncing between cards issue bc for content on each small qa item I have to both paste it manually as a reference when i post it and then as the reader i have to click back and forth to get context from the initial task

Almost every other proj mgmt tool has sub-task threading/comments, curious why Trello doesn't? Is there a philosophical reason you're opposed?

Here's an example in Asana of commenting within sub-tasks in case it helps to understand what I'm saying here