Automatic Formatting: Summary / Parent Task

Tony Barthelemy

Good Day All:

 

Is their a way to add a condition for summary task? For example, the condition would be to bold the Task Column if the Task is a Parent / Summary Task.

 

Thanks

Mike Wilday

You would have to mark the Parent Row somehow... In our workflow we have a template section of tasks for each project that includes content in the parent row that is distinguishable from the rest of the sub-rows. There is a lot of discussion how to accomplish this with a formula, but we do it manually. We add Project to a the parent row in a unique column to indicate the parent row. Then we apply conditional formatting to any row where Project is in that column. Not pretty and smart, but it gets the job done. 

Paul Newcome

I use a helper column for that. I then shove it all the way over tho the right of the sheet, shrink the width to the minimum, set the background and font to white, and lock it. (Don't "Wrap Text" for this column). Then I enter the following:

=IF(COUNT(CHILDREN([Column Name]@row)) > 0, ".", "")

What this does is if the count of the children is greater than 0, it will put a . in the cell. Otherwise it leaves it blank. You can then set up your conditional formatting based on that row containing a .

Drag-fill the whole way down, and it should automatically fill in as new rows are added after the initial set up.

This allows you to have your Parent Row designation driving your conditional formatting with the helper column pretty well hidden.

Tony Barthelemy

Thanks! Both are great ideas

Paul Newcome

This got me to wondering, so I started exploring this in more detail. If you just use what I posted above then EVERY parent row will be the same format regardless of hierarchy.

What if I have multiple projects, each with their own tasks, with some tasks having sub-tasks?

=IF(COUNT(ANCESTORS([Primary Column]1)) < COUNT(ANCESTORS([Primary Column]2)), COUNT(ANCESTORS([Primary Column]1)))

In the above formula, "1" represents the row that you are in, and "2" represents the row below it. Drag fill will automatically update the row references, and of course you'll need to replace "Primary Column" with your own column name.

You can then set Conditional Formatting for each number that is in your support column. This will allow you to "automatically" apply a different formatting based on the row's level of hierarchy.