Help

This Product Ideas board is currently undergoing updates, but please continue to submit your ideas.

[SOLVED] Simple checklist within fields

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Daniel_Zuckerma
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast
Status: Launched

This would go a long way in letting many of us move completely away from Trello, Asana, Etc. into Airtable. I know there are workarounds (link to another tableโ€™s list containing the tasks), but that quickly becomes overly cumbersome. Would love to have simple checklist as a field option!

76 Comments
Greg_Herrington
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

+1 for simple, ad-hoc To-Do/checklists within an airtable entry. These do not need to be relational โ€“ nor sure they be. Ditto on the use case from from moving over from Trelloโ€ฆ

Claude_Schneide
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Came here because I was looking for a solution - weโ€™ve used Axosoft up until now for project management, and it does a great job of having sub-issues which you can expand/collapse from the parent issue.

I found a workaround in Airtable that works really well for us - may be hard to explain, but here goes:

  • The primary field in our table is called โ€œSub-Taskโ€ - this is the granular level task that needs working on.
  • I then have a field next to it called โ€œParent Taskโ€. This is an optional field, as Iโ€™ll explain below.
  • I then Group By โ€œParent Taskโ€, which has the effect of separating out all Parent Tasks into their own section. Any sub-tasks that donโ€™t have a parent task are just collected together in their own โ€œEmptyโ€ group.
  • Each parent taskโ€™s Group can then be expanded/collapsed to view all sub-tasks. And it shows a count of how many sub-tasks there are in each parent task, which is handy.
  • You can then group further by Category or Person (set this grouping before Parent Task), so you could see all โ€œFeaturesโ€ tasks as one group, and inside that would be all Parent Tasks, and then expand each parent task to view sub-tasks.
  • I added a โ€œCompletedโ€ checkbox for each sub-task, and then set the Group summary for the Completed field as โ€œPercent Checkedโ€ - this shows us % progress for the parent task (and any Grouping above/below that), even when collapsed.
  • Finally, I created a couple of duplicate views, so I can see โ€œAll tasks, grouped by Categoryโ€ (e.g. marketing vs. Features vs. Business), then one for โ€œTasks per personโ€, one for โ€œWhat each person is currently working onโ€ (Group by โ€œAssigned Toโ€, then Group by โ€œParent Taskโ€, Filter where Progress = โ€œIn Progressโ€), and โ€œMy current tasksโ€ (Filter where Progress = โ€œIn Progressโ€, Assigned to = me).

Another benefit is that any single task can easily be turned into a task with sub-tasks, simply by typing something into the โ€œParent Taskโ€ field. Airtable automatically moves it to its own group, where you can then add lots of new rows and type each sub-issue into the โ€œSub-Taskโ€ field.
Added bonus - you can create lots of sub-tasks really quickly. Type all of your sub-tasks into a plain text document, one task on each row - copy to clipboard. Then click in a blank Sub-Task field, and paste. It will ask if you want to Expand the Group by default - that option then creates a separate sub-task for each line of your pasted text.
Thus, the workflow to create a parent task with 10 sub-tasks is super-easy:

  • create a new row, and type something as the Parent Task name
  • grab 10 plain text lines and paste them into the Sub-Task field.
  • Done.

Iโ€™ve only just set this up, so will have to see how this works over the long run, but straight away it feels like I have a way of managing my tasks, people, and progress, better than any other tool.

Hereโ€™s an example of how it looks:
image.png

Unlike Axosoft, which I chose because itโ€™s powerful, the UI in Airtable is easier to use, and seems more flexible, especially with different field types and Views.

Hope that helps anyone trying to manage sub-tasks too!

Garland_Coulson
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Thanks for this work around Claude! It really helped.

Steffanie_Lyn_S
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

I hope thereโ€™s an update for this. Would be great to have multiple checklist within a field. That would make things so so much easier.

Allen_Krasna
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Thanks Claude - very Helpful

One disadvantage is that all โ€œparented groupsโ€ of tasks will either be on the top or the bottom - but until Airtable adds it in - this is a good way to go

David_Isaac
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Parent-child records are a useful workaround for some cases (we actually do this a lot), but not for most cases where I want a simple checklist. Case in point: our checklists are typically templates that get used over and over (each month, each release cycle, etc.). The heavyweight parent-child approach is hard to use as a template. A simple checklist (e.g., in a rich text field) can be saved as single row/record and simply duplicated to create a new instance to work on.

Johnny_Liabo1
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

This is probably the only thing my team is missing in Airtable atm. For now weโ€™re using a very simple solution of lists with emojis like :record_button: (unchecked) and :white_check_mark: (checked), which is a bit sub optimal.

Xing_Fang
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Bump +1 on this as well.

Followup: going along the emoji idea, what about giving a markdown textbox? but ideally would be able to get a completion count

Steven_Kornblum
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

I am a BIG MAJOR +1 on this!

Brett_Garwood
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Yes. Need. +1,000,000