Gantt Doesn't Show SubItems that Are Dependent on Other Items but don't yet have a date

Feature requests
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1

I have an Item with various subitems. For example:

  • SubItem A has start and end date (or is a milestone with a single date)
  • Subitem B depends on Subitem A. It will only start after SubItem A is completed. but
  • Subitem B however does not yet have any dates defined. Subitem A might delay, for example. Or Subitme might last 2 or 3 days. We don’t know yet.
  • Same for subitems C, D and E.

On the Gantt chart, Subitems B, C, D, E do not appear. Of course: they don’t yet have a date that can be used. But wait a second: all of them are dependent on A, and that is set. So why can’t they simply be indicated in the Gantt after A? Better than completely hiding them.

Alternatively, I can manually enter a start date (or milestone) for B, C, D and E using the same end date of A. Fine, now they show up on the Gantt. But wait: the dates for A have changed. B, C, D and E don’t reflect that, so I have to go change those dates manually now.

Now imagine if there are many subitems and dependencies. This can become awkward.

If a subitem is dependent on another item, but doesn’t have it’s own date yet, can’t it just use the other item’s end date?

I understand this can be complicated, since the Dates column is a manual entry, and what I’m asking is if it can be automated if it has a dependency. Maybe I’m using the wrong tool or setup?

I really appreciate Monday, but when it starts to get complex that’s when it becomes hard to convince people to use it.

Thanks in advance.

2

I was directed here by @jennap,

so here is my feedback regarding automations with Gantt subitem dependencies:
Unfortunately this feature cannot be used for planning. It is helpful when adjusting running projects but there are some huge hinderances when planning a project at the beginning with these dependency features activated:

  1. subitems are not supported in gantt and timeline views. So I cannot adjust timelines and date for subitems in these views purely because I cannot see any subitems in these views
  2. in dashboards where I CAN see subitem timelines and dates there is no immediate refresh. So when changing the timeline of a subitems that has dependent subitems only the manual change is visible all changes which occur due to the dependency-automations are only displayed after a manual refresh of the whole dashboard.

This leads to

  • dragging the first subitem to a new date
  • all other items do not change BUT in the background their dates are actually changed
  • as these changes are not displayed I manually drag the other subitems as well
  • again all dependent items change their dates in the background
  • ultimately this is a huge clusterf* when I come back to the gantt dashboard after a while and all the manual changes combined with the invisible automations are displayed.

long story short: either subitems need to be supported in gantt and/or timeline views or – even better – gantt and timeline widgets in dashboards need to be immediately refreshed automatically and display all changes via automations.

Best regards

3

I’m surprised why there is no update regarding this from Monday team.

I see this topic being discussed in various places and it’s a MUST HAVE thing for my team as well.
I have many board with repeating processes where I can’t automate subitems together with items.

I’m wondering if anybody has found a solution?

4

Hi, I don’t have a solution I’m afraid, but I think this use-case might also be helped by an alternative ‘breakdown’ view which doesn’t bother with timings. I’ve added a thread on that possibility: ‘Tree’ view: hierarchical breakdown of dependencies / subitems (bit like Org Chart) - #2 by LC-toucanBox