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Creating Sub-Tasks/Nesting Tasks

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Olivia_Vinkler
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Hi! I’m a new user to Airtable. I absolutely love the usability and UI of the app. However, I cannot seem to find quick way to create nesting or sub-tasks.

I wish you could create a way for tasks to be nested under each other and ordered. For example, my primary field is “Task Name,” and my Task Name is “Follow Up with all Current Customers by end of 2018,” is there seems to be no way to create a Sub Task called “Create Follow Up List” and then other sub tasks called “September Follow Up,” “October Follow Up” that are specifically linked to the main task of “Follow Up with All Current Customers.”

We currently use Smartsheet at my company which I find clunky and difficult to use, however it is fairly easy to create nesting and sub tasks with it.

7 Comments
Jacob_Turley
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

You can add a linked record field on your task table and link it to it’s self. From there, you will be able to add / link the “main” task to many children “sub-tasks”

Tyrone_Hines
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Can you explain in depth? Im sorry Im new and need the basics

Jacob_Turley
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

For sure! So one of the really cool abilities of airtable is the ability to link records together! So, for example, you might have a “Contacts” table, and a notes table! A contact has many notes. So, on the contact table, you could add a field(type of : “link record to another table” --> Note table). Now, when you are editing the record you have the ability to link to a record(s) inside of the note table, or add a new note record from within the contact and have it automatically link.

So, on your task table, you could go ahead and do that same concept.

1). Go into your table and add a new field
2). Set the field type to “Link to another record”
3). Set the record link to point to the task table(the one you are working out of)
4). Name this “sub-tasks”
Now, if you go into the expanded view of a note, you should see a new section for “sub-tasks” with the option to link to a record. When you click this, it will bring up a card view of your task table, and you can assign(or create new ones) accordingly.

Does that make sense?

Tyrone_Hines
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Im sorry. I tried this but its not working out the way you mentioned.

SJ_Park
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

This is probably a pretty outdated response but this webinar video helped me a lot:
https://try.airtable.com/webinars/manage-your-projects-with-airtable

If you’re short on time I suggest you watch 04:57-08:15 and 17:13-22:13

Darin_Bellisari
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

+1 Also would love to see this - currently I’m solving the issue by having a Tasks table and Subtasks table that links to the ‘super-tasks’, but that is cumbersome because in order to see the sub-tasks in any digestible way I have to go over to the sub-tasks table.

The checklist Rich-text field is another alternative to tackling this in the short-term, but it’s not ideal as a checklist is harder to digest than separate entries

Thanks!

Tristan_Quevill
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

I was amazed by Airtable and so much creative innovations
until I discover it does not have “checklists” like in Trello, which makes it unusable for more most cases.
I see that people has been requesting for 2 years, What a pitty !

Please check out how it is done with Google Tables and integrate it in our workflows !