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Sub-tasks / project templates needed
+1
We can see a few requests (!) on the forums for what is basically a “sub-task” feature, but these date back to 2009 with no further guidance on when/if this will be implemented.
The key problem is that you often need more granularity in projects than the “global” task categories allow, but you don’t want to add these to every project.
One suggested way around this is to allow tasks and subtasks to be created as needed on a per project basis, instead of global tasks. For common tasks that need to be created for many projects, have a project “template” that can be used.
Eg. Web Design Project Template (simple)
-
Project Management
- Meetings
- Production Management
Design
- Concepts
- Refinement
Development
- HTML/CSS
- UX & Javascript
- Backend
Feature requests & Variations
- Item
Rectifications
- Item
Content
- Content population
Testing
Deployment
(Obviously every user will have their own version/preference here, this is just an example). For updates or maintenance, obviously creating 60-100+ subtasks every month is just not feasible for the way tasks currently work in Harvest. The current functionality essentially means you can have only one project “template” that is used for all projects. It would be vastly preferable to be able to create multiple project templates, and allow subtasks to be created as needed without cluttering up the default project tasks.
Benefits
- Retains simplicity but allows for complexity/granularity for advanced users
- Works well across any industry, allowing the creation and re-use of different project “templates”
- Reports can be enhanced by allowing tasks to be “expanded” showing subtask totals
- Time tracking is just as simple, if subtasks exist these can just show up in the 2nd dropdown
- Stays true to Harvest’s core focus – better time tracking
It sounds like there is strong support for this feature from other users as well. Can we:
- get people to vote for this feature to be implemented (+1 and post your response in comments)
- also get some feedback from the Harvest guys about how/when they see this being implemented?
+1 for us!
I think having Project Templates would make creating projects much, much easier.
We have a long list of tasks. Not every task applies to every project, but we have maybe four or five projects that we do over and over again that have the same tasks. It would be helpful to be able to select a project template that already had the common tasks for that project, hours associated with each task, etc.
Also, +1 for the sub-tasks. It would be great to see how much overall time was spent on “Project Management,” for example, and then drill down to how much of that time was spent on “Project Management – Client Meeting” vs. “Project Management – Coordination” etc.
+1
This is exactly what we need. Would like to see an estimate template also for the same reason. I’m new to harvest so forgive me if any of this is in place.
+1 for us as well!
We have a HUGE list of tasks. We’ve only been using Harvest for a week, and already we’ve had 8 tasks added.
I’m not sure if sub-tasks or project specific tasks make more sense – depending on how Harvest decided to do it, we could make use of either- but either way, our task pool is going to be massive and require a lot of maintenance to keep it from getting unwieldy. A way to manage that information without having to net the scum out from the task pool every couple of months would be great.
BTW – if the support/dev team were curious to look through our current tasks and how we manage them, I’m happy to give you permission to look through ours. Currently we’re splitting them into Billable and Non-Billable tasks, with the Non-Billable task names using a blank-space as a first character (" Admin") so they all sort together. We’ve got around 75 tasks all up, so there needed to be some organization.
Thanks for the feedback! Sub-tasks is a current feature request, so I’ve added your votes to the total.
You can duplicate a project by going to Manage > Projects then clicking the Duplicate button to the right of the project that you would like to duplicate.
