Anyone has any workaround if there is a dependencies set with Task 1,2,3,4,5,6…
So the idea is:
Task 2 is dependent on Task 1
Task 3 is dependent on Task 2
Task 4 is dependent on Task 3
and so on…
How can we:
Avoid Task 2 status column to be updated before Task 1 status is complete/done
How can we alert Task 2 people that Task 1 is not completed before they can proceed to Task 2.
Imagine different people assigned to different tasks in a project that has for example 10 tasks which is dependent on each other.
Hopefully someone here understands what I am describing here. Hope to have some expert to share their insights. Thanks!
Unfortunately the dependency column (and monday in general) doesn’t conditionally restrict the update of columns/items based on other columns/items.
There is an automation to change status of dependent items once the predecessor is ‘Done’. Which technically accomplishes a desired outcome.
So in your example:
Task 2 is dependent on Task 1
Task 3 is dependent on Task 2
Task 4 is dependent on Task 3
in your status column have (at least) 3 values:
Not Ready
Ready
Done
So Task 1 is in ‘Ready’ and all other tasks are ‘Not Ready’
Then when Task 1 moves to ‘Done’ the dependency automation will move Task 2 status to ‘Ready’ Add another automation to notify owner when status changes to ‘Ready’.
Then when Task 2 moves to ‘Done’ Task 3 gets set to ready and so on.
I believe this solution technically accomplishes both your asks. Albeit in a round about way AND a person could still start on a dependent task and change it if the previous wasn’t done. Although it should be abundantly clear if the status is ‘Not Ready’ that they shouldn’t start.
Hope that helps and let me know if that works out for you!
Best!
Thanks @timlittletech for replying me and giving me such details.
Sadly it does not help to ensure Task 2 is updated without Task 1 being completed/done. Or give a warning when Task 2 is being updated when Task 1 still not complete/done.
The suggestion you gave is for Task 1 to make changes to Task 2. So Task can only begin when the predecessor tasks are completed.
This is an interesting use case. If the board permissions were set so that users could only update assigned items, it would be possible to make the assignment dependant on the preceding item and therefore control change authorization:
However, I can’t think of a way using standard or custom automation recipes to make these assignments to dependant items. It could be done easily with Integromat or similar.
Thanks @JCorrell for sharing. I suppose monday.com is unable to achieve what I need at the moment and an additional API integration will be needed for now.
I too am having a similar issue.
Our teams consistently do everything out of order according to the timeline/ dependency.
An automation changes the Dependency to Ready to Start when the Status changes to Done for a task.
The issue is that as things are done out of order, anything which has already got the status of Done, changes to Ready to Start.
If anyone has a solution around this please can you help as I am really struggling.
Hi,
Yes, this is what I have on my board. The issue is that everyone in our business doesn’t do anything in order, so changes a status to Done even though the Dependency hasn’t been done. So when the Dependency changes to Done, this automation above changes all the already Done status’ to Ready to Start.
I read your comment about how dependencies for a status column could be done easily with Integromat/Make. I just signed up for a Make account… I am clueless as to how I would set this up. To reiterate the issue, if Task 2 is dependent on Task 1, I wouldn’t want Task 2’s status to be able to be changed until Task 1 is complete, etc.
The solution that I was proposing was to use a people column to control the access. With Make you would have a scenario that adds board users to the people column of the items/subitems that have the current item as a dependency when the status changes to complete.
I was also looking for the same solution but I was able to come up with a work around using automations and another status column. Not sure if this would solve exactly what you wanted but here’s the process:
we setup a hidden status column to check if an item is a dependent or not : meaning when ever we complete a task, this status should be used to flag as (Task Done if Done, Task upcoming if it’s preceding task is upcoming)
Using this as a condition we can make sure to only allow tasks to be done if the hidden status column says Task is upcoming (If not , sending a notification for the user to update preceding tasks)
I hope this gave u an idea on how to proceed with setting up these automations, I have used the above automations twice for the main Status column and the hidden status columns. Also you can make sure to add (checking if the dependency column is empty for first tasks as we know they don’t have preceding items)
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