Unification of Lists and Tasks functionality
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R C
Hi Guys,
With some big features coming up within Hierarchy of ClickUp - SubFolders, and Nested Subtasks - I’d like to propose some ways Tasks and Lists could come together for greater Functionality:
- Provide a “List View” option for Tasks. This would provide benefits of:
- This way you could get a great view of the Nested Subtasks, using the entire page. That would allow fully customize able view into rows on Subtasks.
- With another upcoming feature, Relations, you could group a Task’s relations with a “List View” of the Task. Much like right now you group Tasks in a List by just about any attribute (tag, custom field, assignee, etc.)
- Tasks would be more easily used as Projects, similar to Wrike or Asana functionality. Lists aren’t quite as strong right now in a few ways:
- They don’t have Workflow Status
- You can’t @mention Lists like Tasks
- You can’t see Lists on a board - feature of many other apps that allow viewing of Project Boards.
- You can’t relate Lists to anything
- Lists don’t work well in Gantt - they can’t be dependent, for example, even though Project dependencies is a big need in Work Management.
Glad to get some additional thoughts from others in the community, and really hoping you guys will give this consideration!
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Andi Villacis
we need it!!!
Julian Pustkuchen
Would be great for high-level planning to be able to plan with lists (as if they were tasks). Wonderful idea and generalisation.
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John Jones
Here is another related request with a lot of votes (68 right now) about specifically being able to link to Lists or Folders with the "@@" command. Big part of this general request!
Waleed Elaghil
Merged in a post:
Project(s) View for Lists
Shane Vandegrift
To see the progress of a list would be cool. Like "New Game 13/20 completed"
Also a main view linked to each list. There would also be a custom status for each list. My idea could be "To do, started, halted, complete"
This feature would make managing lists as a group and managing lists all lot easier.
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John Jones
Ivan Villa and Waleed Elaghil Hey guys, could you weigh in if ClickUp has any plans around this?
As a former big user of both Asana and Wrike, and I think you probably have legions of converts here in ClickUp, this is probably the one biggest missing piece.
There are certain things I think Lists really need from Tasks' functionality, summarizing here:
- Lists have no Custom Fields. So you can't use all the great attributes to apply to your Projects in ClickUp if you are using Lists for them. I think most people gravitate to "Lists" as the entity in ClickUp best suited for Project Management.
- Lists have no Status. You can't put a Project "on hold," or mark it as "closed"
- Lists can't be @mentioned anywhere in ClickUp, while you can mention Tasks and get a reciprocal link to them from ANYWHERE. Huge limitation when referencing Projects in Docs, Chats, other Tasks, etc.
- there is none of the good "Roll Up" capability to close a List if the tasks and various Subtasks/Assigned Comments/Checklists are done. Great feature of Tasks
I'd simply like to know if you guys plan to have Lists pick up any of this, or will they remain sort of a secondary "container" missing most of the good feature of Tasks while you work on Goals, nested Subtasks, etc.
Thanks in advance for looking at this!
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John Jones
Hi, one more thing that I have seen that would be useful to do in both Lists and Tasks is apply a Tag.
I have Tasks that I "tag" such as "client," "Bug," etc. However, I have also situations where my Lists represent a certain "entity" within Folders, such as "Features." However, these lists are in Folders that aren't called "Features" because I need the Folder to be named something else. So if I could tag the list as "feature," I'd get the same benefit that I can with a Tag in Tasks.
So another big need for unification I can see!
Julian Pustkuchen
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John Jones
Another point that comes to mind for me is Project Management:
We have a lot of projects that get into a "planning" stage when we first decide actually to do them.
- Wrike can handle this by putting the Project in Status "In Planning". ClickUp has no Status in a List. So you can't do the equivalent in a List. You can in a Task. So if you wanted to do something like this, you're forced to use a Task.
In theory you can use the workaround of putting all Lists in the "in planning" state into a certain color. But you won't be able to run any reports, for example, to see those particular Projects.
- Asana can handle this with its Project "sections." You can have tasks that are use in Planning in the "Planning" section. This is hard to do in Tasks as you can't break down Subtasks. You could use Lists to break down Tasks with Custom Fields and get closer to emulating this functionality in ClickUp.
Seems like something you'd also agree with Michel Tandrup?
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John Janik
This is a great thread. I apologize to go off topic but when I was looking for non shill affiliate reviews I saw Reddit users from many different industries recommending Clickup for its aggressive development in project management.
I can honestly see myself utilizing Clickup for a large part of my collaboration.
I see it where I can use Clickup for basic MS Office type apps as well as countless others for quick collaboration and management.
As an Engineer...the more intricate software...3D CAD, Simulation, large SPC data query, etc will still be stand alone 3rd party OEMS but even viewers, etc can maybe done with Zapier or standard shared even through Clickup.
For my Group...the lack of the ability for infinite nested parent child tasks and subfolders would be a game changer and I would even pay a premium to have this module add on available sooner then maybe a year or two.
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R C
John Janik: Great, thanks for the support of this! Yes one thing I think is that with nested capability, of both Tasks (via subtasks which is in this high-profile post https://clickup.canny.io/feature-requests/p/ability-to-nest-subtasks), and SubFolders (https://clickup.canny.io/feature-requests/p/subfolders) we will get close to unifying Tasks & Lists, because you could use each for more than you can use them now.
However, they still each have attributes that the other doesn’t, so if you decide to use, say, a List for a Project, and not a Task, you are going not be able to, for example:
- @mention in comments
- have a status
- Have any custom fields as you can’t apply them to a List
If you choose a task instead of a List, you can’t:
- See all your subtasks grouped
- Have automations or workflows that apply only to the subtasks. So if you’re using a Task for a certain type of repeatable of project in a Task instead of a List, and it has a lot of “tasks” that you’re using Subtasks to represent, you can’t give them unique attributes around Workflow, Automations. You COULD do a workaround where you have a List with just one Task to handle this, and have unique workflow and automations at the List level, but this creates a very odd set up.
Hoping this is all useful to the ClickUp team and this unification will come together!
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Michel Tandrup
Why have lists at all? I'm used to working with a Project (sub-project), Folder (Sub-folder) and taks (sub-task) hierarchy, that allows for complete freedom. If you need to group a set of tasks, you just create a folder or sub-folder for them. For inspiration, look at the way Wrike organizes projects like this.
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R C
Michel Tandrup: This is a great point Michel Tandrup and basically what I am getting at here. The thing is, currently in ClickUp, lists and Tasks each have key features that the other is missing, so it’s hard to really construct more complex flows as I feel like you are limited by using one or the other, but you can’t interchange them.
Wrike is a great example I’ve used extensively and some of what they have going on here I’d love to get in ClickUp. As I got along in Wrike, I started to realize that a Wrike “Project” and Wrike “Task” have precious little differences. You can in Wrike:
- use both as a container and see roll ups, like children progress, on a Spreadsheet view. Can’t do near this in ClickUp yet with the existing Spreadsheet, or List View.
- Either has status, so you can set that up as you need. In fact in Wrike you can have Status on a PER TASK level, very useful
- Either can be @mentioned across Wrike. Right now, you can’t @mention a list or folder in ClickUp
- Portfolio views roll up Tasks and sub-projects. Can’t do this in ClickUp. The Portfolio at the moment seems like an MVP that doesn’t have a lot of future, which I think is good, as with Subfolders, Relations, Nested Subtasks all coming soon I think it will be a redundant feature. Still, until we have a real Portfolio view in ClickUp, this is a huge piece of typical Project Management missing.
And fully agree what you’re talking about re: Folders. Wrike does this very simple thing well: Projects and Folders have one simple difference: Folders “group,” permanently, while Projects are like Folders with time constraints and related other attributes. In my use of ClickUp, it’s been confusing to figure out which way to go with Lists. I would much prefer - and that’s the motivation behind this post - to have simple Folders like we have now, and then have the next level be Tasks with full Project-like capabilities that you can infinitely nest under.
Thanks again for the contribution to this thread!
M
Michel Tandrup
R C: One of the things i use a lot in Wrike, is the custom, calculated fields roll-up function, for example for billed vs budgeted costs. I don't think you can @mention tasks and folders though in Wrike (but you can insert the permalink)? This is one on the things I find great in Click-up. The slash commands are great and also the ability to add documentation to the project, which is a lot more complicated to structure in Wrike.
Also, in Click-Up, I really like the ability to group on almost any attribute, including custom fields. In Wrike you only have filters and they can be cumbersome to work with.
In Wrike, i'm also missing the coloring options of custom fields Click-Up offers - the colors really help create a visual overview and context.
So, in my mind, Click-Up has so many great things going for them, that if they where to fix this core concept of folders and tasks, they would have a truly strong project management platform to work on. Today I can't use it for projects, because of the constraints in the folder/list/task structure. We use the nesting of folders and tasks in Wrike, to quickly show dependencies and relations in complex projects, via the indentations in the table / gantt view. Doing this with the traditional dependencies function in Click-Up does not give you that birds eye view of the project in my opinion.
My "fix" list in prioritized order, would be:
- Fixing the whole Workspace/folder/list/task constraint.
- Custom, calculated fields roll-up to parent tasks / folders. Conditional formatting would be fantastic also.
- A table view that actually works, with cut and paste like in Wrike. Of course combined with nested folders and tasks, for the indented overview.
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R C
Michel Tandrup: Hey this is absolutely great stuff and you are talking about exactly what I am getting at with this post!
First, I stand corrected, indeed you cannot “@mention” anything in Wrike! What you can do is paste a link to a Project/Folder/Task - and at times this is not consistent - and it will unfurl. While useful, these links also are limited - don’t show status of Project, for example. Agree 100% ClickUp has Wrike beat hands down with the backslash and way to compose and move around so much more fluidly.
You have summed up exactly my situation in ClickUp, too. The one and only thing that holds me back in here is the inability to run Projects like I could in Wrike. ClickUp has Wrike beat in every other aspect. But unfortunately, this is so key that I continually come back to Wrike due to getting stuck in ClickUp on this.
I also posted re: the Wrike spreadsheet over in the “Spreadsheet View” post. What we have in ClickUp in the v.1 is unfortunately also lacking when compared to Wrike.
When you say “conditional formatting” are you talking about advanced features like if a status is “x,” change task color to “y”? This is a big feature of Coda, in case you’ve tested that.
At any rate, thank you very much for adding in a very well-summarized post about the problem. Really hoping this will get solved soon. My hope is that “lists” will just melt away and we’ll be left with very powerful Tasks/subtasks - which can:
- nest infinitely
- have different status
- multi-home
(Which is a core feature on tasks of both Wrike and Asana...)
And folders to group all this.
On top of upcoming big things with Relations, which neither Asana or Wrike have at all, and will bring true flexibility to ClickUp.
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Trevor Hawley
Michel Tandrup: Yep I just spent a full week trying to configure clickup for like the 3rd time after a couple years and I still can't get basic Project totals and overviews. Wrike is the only platform I'm seeing right now that's doing this.
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John Jones
Trevor Hawley: Great point, as a former Wrike user I keep reminiscing about how exactly they handled just that - Projects. Not much else on that Platform was such that ClickUp, or a host of other apps, isn't superior. But same here, I can't get fully into ClickUp due to this huge missing piece. I have hoped for Goals to possibly fit the need, encouraged by the preview at the LevelUp, but until it's released, still no guarantees here and nothing to look forward to...
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R C
Trevor Hawley: Great comment here, thanks for the support! Yes sadly I’m in the same boat - I cannot get an easy way to set up typical “Projects,” and group them, ideally in Folders, like you can do in Wrike, and often times as I try yet again with ClickUp, I year for the ease of Wrike in this regard and go back into my Wrike account. Other than this simple, but essential element of Wrike, there is practically nothing it does better than ClickUp.
Right now in the months since I wrote this comment I still can’t tell what is the best approach in ClickUp to solve this:
- Try to use tasks with the new nested subtasks, but deal with situations when the “parent’ task that’s the project needs a different workflow that the “children” tasks that are subtasks, which is impossible
- Try to use Lists and all their limitations for Projects: They can’t have a status, you can’t “close” them, you can’t report well on progress overall of your “lists” like you can in Wrike and Asana, there is no history of Lists, no linking within Docs, etc.
- Holdout for Goals v2 that may solve this by creating an entity similar to Projects we know from Asana/Wrike. I have hope hear as one huge piece that rivals Asana/Wrike is that you can add ANY task from ANYWHERE in ClickUp to the current Goals. You can also have a task and subtask live in multiple Goals independently. But it’s not clear to me how integrated these Goals will be with the rest of ClickUp. Will they be in Spaces, or elsewhere? How easily will you be able to see them across the rest of work? In Gantt? Mindmaps? Workload?
Without clarification here the most benefit I can get in ClickUp is with task management, but I have the same real difficulties as you in trying to run bonafide Project Mgmt here.
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R C
Ivan Villa Hey Ivan, given some support on this from below, would you have a moment to weigh in here about whether Relations and Nested Subtasks could help with some of the points laid out here?
In particular, something being able to have the full page “list” view that you get at the Space/Folder/List level, but for Tasks, with the relations grouped. Just like you can now group a List by various attributes, namely status, tags, etc.
So if you had say a Task that was your Client in a CRM Use case, you could have “groups” of related tasks like:
- invoices
- ongoing bugs
- Projects - which could also be Tasks, just used differently
Likewise, a Project use case: In this situation, you’d have a Task as a Project. The relations would group below, such as:
- Features that are being built in the project
- Ideas that are getting take care of in the Project
- The Project’s tasks
- Goals that this projects is moving forward.
Thankful for any insight and guidance into your guys’ thinking here Ivan!
Ivan Villa
R C: Hey Aaron! We are looking to add something like this. it will start as sort of a mini list view where you can see both related tasks and some of their details, but have the option to expand to an expanded version. Similar to how you can do it with Task description now.
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