Repetitive Task List Instantiation - Editing Multiple Tasks From a Master List

bangddrum

A common experience we encounter is when we have long, identical lists of tasks (7 or more), indented under many parent titles, that need editing, as shown below:

 

PARENT ONE

1.     Task ONE
2.     Task TWO
3.     Task THREE. etc.

PARENT TWO

1.     Task ONE
2.     Task TWO
3.     Task THREE. etc.

 

We have many PARENTS with identical lists of tasks that are repetitive and it's a pain to go in and update each block of Tasks, one set at a time. It's tedious, time consuming, and prone to errors. 

My question is:  Is there a way to create a MASTER list of tasks that would permit INSTANTIATION within the sheet so that if I wanted to adjust the list GLOBALLY, all I would have to do is update the MASTER, and all instances of the master would also be updated?  That would be tremendous if you have that in the works, but if you don't is there another way I can manage these long lists of repetitive tasks without going in and editing every single line/block of tasks?

 

I hope I am explaining that clearly. Thank you!

 

J. Craig Williams

bang,

 

If I understand your post, you have a set of tasks that are identical throughout a project. You would like to update the text description of these based on a master list of those tasks.

 

In your example above, there is a set of tasks

• Task ONE
• Task TWO
• Task THREE

 

that you would like to change to

• Task UNO
• Task DOS
• Task TRES

 

and have the tasks update in the project sheet throughout.

 

If that is true, you might look at cell-linking

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/861579-cell-linking

 

or find and replace

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2115655-find-replace

 

If you are also concerned about creating a new set of tasks, then copy-row might help

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/770589-copying-a-row-to-another-sheet

 

but the cell-links are not created automatically.

 

Hope that sparks some ideas.

 

Craig

 

bangddrum

Thanks for the response, Craig. Yeah, that's the scenario, except sometimes we need to add and subtract tasks. The copy-row-to-another-sheet looks like it drops the row to the bottom of the sheet rather than augment/update the task list. 

This one bit of functionality in a future release would be incredibly helpful. We spend a lot of time just copy and pasting duplicate tasks in rows, only to have to painstakingly copy/paste new tasks or adjust order, etc. A master with instantiation would truly be a mega-timesaver.