How do I not report on parent row tasks from a project plan?

MightyBlues24

I created a project plan where I created (for example) a parent row of "Day 1 Comms", and then created 2 children rows ("Develop comms" and "Approval of comms"). I assigned the 2 children row tasks to "Marketing" and added start and end dates that were in the past.

I created a report to see all "overdue tasks by dept" report. The report shows all 3 tasks- both the 2 children rows, and then also the parent row (which isn't a "task" but more of a category.)

How do I correctly report that there are only 2 tasks that are overdue (from the children rows), as the parent row is not a "task" but more of a category label?

Nic Larsen

One option we use is with a helper column to identify Rows that are parents with this in a checkbox column: =IFERROR(IF(COUNT(CHILDREN()) > 0, 1, 0), "")

Then you can use the Filter in the report to exclude rows that are Parent rows.

MightyBlues24

Hi Nic, thanks for responding. Brilliant! Thank you, and it worked!

Andrée Starå

Hi @MightyBlues24

I hope you're well and safe!

To add to Nic's excellent advice/answer.

Here's another option.

I usually add a helper column called Level with the formula below. You can then use it to identify parents, use it for conditional formatting, and more.

=IF(COUNT(CHILDREN([Task Name]@row)) > 0, COUNT(ANCESTORS()) + 1)

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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MightyBlues24

Hi @Andrée Starå - thank you! How does this formula differ from the one @Nic Larsen provided?

I also tried creating a new column, and added the formula, but it came back with #UNPARSEABLE?

Nic Larsen

This is also a great option and has a lot of uses. You'd put Andree's formula in a text/number column and update the column name in formula to match your task column (if named different). It will count the Level's so you can assign colors per row level for example.

Andrée Starå

@MightyBlues24

Happy to help!

What Nic said! ;)

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