Trello - Task items should be able to reference other tasks.

MattStrom April 22, 2019

I'm currently doing this via Checklists, however, it would be nice to be able to reference another task you made in a "dependency" fashion.

For instance, you could create an Epic, and this Epic task would need sub-tasks a, b, and c to complete.  I currently use labels and checklists to make a pseudo version of task dependency.  (Sub tasks have targeted release labels, and checklists for further required or referenced tasks)

I know this is essentially asking for JIRA features in the "free" Trello boards, but It would be a valuable feature!

Otherwise, since this is a discussion, how do you guys manage your workflows in Trello?

3 comments

Danny Flynn April 22, 2019

I agree!  The ability to link cards and create relationships within the column would be awesome! 

Danny Flynn April 22, 2019

I added some trello tags to this.  @Jodi LeBlanc @_Trello_Leader__Jodi_LeBlanc is a community leader for Trello, and is extremely knowledgeable about the product.  I tagged her, hopefully she joins this thread.  

Jodi LeBlanc
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
April 24, 2019

Thanks for your kind words Danny! I’m at a loss for this one. Iain Dooley may have a suggestion. I can’t seem to tag him on this reply, can you please do that?

Thanks,

jodi

Jodi LeBlanc
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
April 28, 2019

@Iain Dooley are you able to take a look at this please? Thanks!

Iain Dooley
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
April 28, 2019

@MattStrom the way you're doing subtasking is the "best practise" for subtasking in Trello.

I wrote about some automation options for this method of subtasking here:

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

You can also use the Epics power up which might have some of the dependency functionality you're after.

The Butler for Trello team wrote about managing task dependencies:

https://medium.com/@butlerfortrello/managing-task-dependencies-in-trello-a837f614adc3

Although that was written prior to the Trello acquisition of Butler and also references features that were present in the Bot that, if I'm not mistaken, are not present in the power up.

Placker is a 3rd party Gantt charting tool that allows you to do more formal dependencies:

https://placker.com/product/trello/plan_and_track

They have a power up, I've never used the power up but their product is really good. 

If all you want to do is have a task depend on sub-tasks, then having a checklist where the completion or archiving or moving to a "completed" list of a subtask card will automatically mark a checklist item as complete on the master is fine, however if what you really want is to have due dates "bubble up" from dependencies then it's trickier to do in Butler because one Butler command can't trigger another, so you can't just have an infinite level of layers that operate automatically.

This Trellinator command would set the due date on a linked "master" when the due date is modified, and would trigger up the chain so that the due date on all master cards will automatically reflect the greatest due date + estimated completion time of any subtask:

https://gist.github.com/iaindooley/0b6f5b9b19f8f0c026197f91c337e7a9

Like MattStrom likes this
MattStrom April 29, 2019

Thanks @Iain Dooley I will definately have to give some of these a try.  Those power-ups seem like the way to go if I need any more functionality.

Thanks for the input!

Comment

Log in or Sign up to comment
TAGS
AUG Leaders

Atlassian Community Events