To see tasks linking to (mentioning) selected task

Hello everyone!

We are really missing following feature in Asana:
To see a list of tasks that are linking to (mentioning) the selected task.

Here’s my “user story”.

I’d like to create task about a feature X. I mention this task in descriptions of many other tasks. It’s because those other tasks are related to this feature X.

Now I need to consider what are the dependencies of the feature X… I would like to check what stuff links to it. But I can’t…

What I’m asking about is a list of tasks linking to (mentioning) selected task. This list could be somewhere down below the list of projects and tags…

Ability to do this would be especially good for managing complex software projects.

Or is there a way to do this? Or maybe some Asana plugin could do that?

This works great on GitHub. But we’re missing it here in Asana :frowning:

Cheers,
Adam

I admit that there have been times that I’ve used @ to mention Task A in Task B and then go back and @ mention Task B in Task A.

But based on what you are talking about, does Task dependencies and their visualization in the timeline provide what you need?

[…] I’ve used @ to mention Task A in Task B and then go back and @ mention Task B in Task A.

That’s what I’m doing now…

Task dependencies are great, but it’s for another purpose. As far as I know, a task can be dependent only on one task. Not on many tasks. Plus there is no list where I could see those tasks.

Dependencies in Timeline are good, but that’s again for a different thing. We use it for planning milestones. But not for documentation. So to answer your question - it does not provide what we need.

Just a list of tasks mentioning active task. That would do :slight_smile:

@Adam_Sabla. I think you solution is dependency tasks. You can make a task Dependant on one or many other tasks. Also I am sure you can then do an Advanced Search to show the dependant tasks.
On my phone at the moment but later today I will send you some screenshots of this working…

Jason.

@Adam_Sabla - Okay so got back onto the computer a bit quicker than I thought. Here are the screen shots…

Single Task with Multiple Dependant Tasks.
32

And another Dependant Tasks with its own Dependant Task.
44

Then Next Step is the Advanced Search Option;
23

Okay so you have a couple of options in the Serach for Dependancies “Blocking”, “Blocked” and “Unblocked” you might want to muck around with those options to see how you go but here is the search I used and the results;

Hope this helps you out @Adam_Sabla

Have a good weekend.

Jason.

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Hi @Jason_Woods ! Thanks so much for your post and the screenshots, very much appreciated!!!

I didn’t know I can mark a task dependent on multiple tasks. That could do the trick.

However, this workflow gets “not so convenient” at the parent task (the task the other task is dependent on). It adds just a small feed to the comment section and it can easily get lost.

I guess I would still need to mention the dependent task in the description (of the parent task) to be able to see it easily.

Still not ideal, but it’s definitely better that where I started :slight_smile:

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@Adam_Sabla - Not a problem happy to help.

At the top of the Parent Task you should see all of the Dependant Tasks listed clearly as per my first Screen shot. That will always stay until you either remove the dependency or complete the dependant task.

Jason.

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Hi @Jason_Woods, sorry for my late reaction!

Thanks!! But the thing is, that in following setup…

  • “Main Task”
  • “Dependent Task” (set as dependent on “Main Task”)

… inside “Dependent Task”, I can see that it’s dependent on “Main Task” on the top.

BUT inside “Main Task”, I can not see that the “Dependent Task” is dependant on it. I can only see the link in the comments section… but there’s not the “yellow” list on the top or anything like it…

Or am I still missing something?

Thanks!

@Adam_Sabla - That’s weird. Can you attach a screen shot of the top your Main Task.

@Marie, @Michael_A - Is there a profile setting that gets the top part of the task to show the dependant tasks?

Jason.

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@Jason_Woods, sure! Here:

Main Task:

Dependent Task

@Adam_Sabla - I understand this now… You and I have the Main and Dependant tasks around the other way form each other.

Okay If your Main Task A is the Main task with everything else is dependant on then, you need to start with that task and then click the “…” and then “Mark as Dependant on” Dependant Task B which will then give you the list you want.

The way you have it now is that “Dependent Task B” is dependent on completion of “Main Task A” which I don’t think is how you want it. I believe you want it the other way around in that “Main Task A” can’t be completed until “Dependent Task B” is completed.

However what it does do is swap your problem around “Main Task A” will have what you are after but “Dependent Task B” will just have the comment. Now I am not sure if that is a problem for you or not, I must admit I would like it to also show the same thing at the top of the task. It would be good to show that “Dependent Task B” is a dependency of “Main Task A” and potentially another Task.

Jason.

@Adam_Sabla, I agree, this has always been a short coming of Asana Task dependencies. It was very hard to tell that a Task was holding up another Task. Because of this, I was of the mindset of why bother using the feature.

It wasn’t till Timeline that we got the desperately needed visualization of Task dependancies.

Even so, it would still be a significant improvement to make it clear in the Task itself, that something is waiting on it’s completion. How do you expect the Task assignee to know they are holding something up, if the Task doesn’t make it clear to them?

(It would also be valuable if these dependency events would trigger e-mail notifications.)

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@Vince_Mustachio I agree!

@Jason_Woods …I could achieve that by making both tasks dependent on each other. But that would create so much bureaucracy… Imagine that you have 5 tasks that depend on each other… that’s a lot of clicks.

What I really wanted was: if I link some task B from the description fo task A, it would show up in the task B somewhere, that that task A links.

No more clicks… that’s it. That would be really handy when for example: connecting tasks about developing software features that rely on each other.

Here, the discussion ended up around Dependencies. There’s the same prolbem.

…so now we have neded up with two problems, instead of solving the first one :smiley:

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@Adam_Sabla. Yeah but we have shared the problem so doesn’t that mean it is halved… :smiley::smiley:

Hopefully there are some upcoming enhancement to how dependencies work…

Jason.

I want this too!

@Adam_Sabla this sounds slightly different from what you’re after… but might be a hidden feature you weren’t aware of, so here goes:

If you grab the URL of the dependent task (or one you are linking to mentioning in others) and search it, the results should include any task where that dependent task appears via hypertext in either the description or a comment. I don’t know if tasks listed as “dependent” using the Asana feature will populate in these results to work the same effect, but worth a try.

Here’s an example for context:

We plan our marketing emails in Asana and maintain a list of tasks that are email banners. The banners are “linked” or “mentioned” on any email task where we’d want it to be added to the final marketing message, using the hypertext feature to cross link the banner task in the email task’s description. If I search the URL of the banner task in Asana, the results are all email tasks I have requested that banner to appear on.

Hope that makes sense and might help you or another user in some way.

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Hi @pbiolsi, thanks, that’s good to know!

Yeah, it’s not really a solution to my problem, but definitely a handy thing to know! Thanks!

:+1: cool! I found it handy, so always eager to share. I agree with all you’ve covered in this thread regardless and would like to see dependencies improve…

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Sorry for the late follow-up @Jason_Woods! Nope, I’m afraid that we don’t have a setting for that unfortunately. That said, I agree it would be super useful!

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This is a potentially deal-breaking feature for me. I use Asana as a mind-mapping tool and it would be tremendously more effective if links could be two-way.

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