Let subtasks inherit standard/custom fields of parent tasks (copy field values from parent to subtask) | Feature Requests

Let subtasks inherit standard/custom fields of parent tasks (copy field values from parent to subtask)

planned

Nunatic

November 21, 2019

Caroline Ginty

Pinned

Update May 2026: Hi everyone - this feature is still on the backlog, but we will share updates here as they are available. Thanks!

Hemant Kumar

Update Oct 2026: Hi everyone - this feature is still in the backlog. We have been building the rollup platform and targetting Beta for our 1st milestone (subtask to parent rollup) very soon. We have a few other milestones to complete before we get to this one and evaluate the request. I will continue to share updates as they are available. Thanks!

Rosie Burke

Hemant Kumar this not being available is really frustrating for my team. We'd really welcome this coming ASAP.

Szymon Piech

Caroline Ginty Now you have nearly sorted the roll-up, we would expect the roll-down (inheritance) to come next

Wim Delfs

Caroline Ginty Any news here? ... zzz

Wim Delfs

5.2k likes and it’s still on the backlog. How many likes does it take to actually get this developed?

Wim Delfs

Ciara O Brien

Joey Chua

Wim Delfs Hi Wim, I’ve tested a few partial workarounds for copying parent fields into subtasks and would be happy to share the steps if they could save you some manual work.
Are you currently copying those values by hand? Which fields do you need carried over most often?
If you prefer to discuss privately, you can email me at joeyc5817@gmail.com

Wim Delfs

Hi Joey Chua , I'd definitely be interested to hear more about the workarounds you tested. Has ClickUp introduced a solution for this in the meantime, or are you using a workaround with automations through Make.com or Zapier? I'd be happy to learn more about the steps you took.

Thanks!

Joey Chua

Hi Wim Delfs , thanks! I tested these inside ClickUp itself:
• Duplicate a populated subtask: copied all five fields in my test, but later parent changes didn’t carry over.
• Bulk edit selected subtasks: let me set Customer and Department on several subtasks together.
• “Create subtask” automation: copied the triggering parent’s Customer and Due date into a predefined new subtask. I didn’t get all five fields working dynamically.
For the automation, I selected Customer from the triggering task’s variables and used “Fields from Trigger → Due date” for the deadline. This copied the values once; it didn’t keep them synchronized.
Which fields do you need inherited, and do you create subtasks manually, through templates, or through automations? I can then share the steps for the option most relevant to you.

Wim Delfs

Hi Joey Chua, thanks for taking the time to test those options and share the results. Unfortunately, we're not looking for a one-time copy when creating a subtask. 😊 What we're really missing is a way for subtasks to automatically inherit and stay aligned with certain parent task fields.

In our case, this is mainly for custom fields used in reporting. Subtasks are usually created manually or through task templates, depending on the workflow. At the moment, we're mainly exploring whether there's a native ClickUp solution, as maintaining this through external automations can become quite complex. If you've found any other approaches, I'd be very interested to hear about them. Thanks again! Wim

Joey Chua

Hi Wim Delfs , understood—you need ongoing synchronization, and the native options I tested don’t cover that.
I’m exploring a dedicated app that keeps selected parent fields aligned with subtasks, without users having to build or maintain Make/Zapier workflows. Nothing is built yet.
Would connecting an app like that be an option for your team, or is a native-only solution a requirement?
If it could be an option, could you share one reporting field you currently keep aligned and how often those updates are needed? -Joey

Wim Delfs

Hi Joey Chua, thanks for sharing your thoughts. To be honest, if we wanted to solve this through an external tool, we could already do that ourselves with Make.com or a similar platform. Adding yet another app to maintain doesn't really feel like the most efficient solution.
For us, this is functionality that should ideally be built into ClickUp itself. Parent and subtask field inheritance is such a fundamental use case, especially when those fields are used for reporting, dashboards, and workload tracking. Without synchronization, reporting can easily become inconsistent or outdated.
So my warm encouragement to the ClickUp team would be: please consider prioritizing this as a native feature. I believe many customers would benefit from it.
@Ciara O Brien   @Caroline Ginty
Thanks again for taking the time to explore the options and reach out.
Best, Wim

Joey Chua

Hi Wim Delfs , understood—thanks for clarifying. A native solution is your preference, and adding another app wouldn’t suit your team. Your explanation of the reporting impact has been helpful, and I appreciate you taking the time to discuss it.

Chris Aitken

I'm genuinely surprised this hasn't been addressed, especially after years of consistent requests from your paying customers. Caroline Ginty, has your team spec'd or estimated this? Or is it sitting in a backlog abyss, unlikely to ever see the light of day?

Artem Kurganskiy

Oh wow, it's been 7 years since this was requested. I built this feature myself in an hour with a couple of simple API calls

Szymon Piech

Artem Kurganskiy, we're losing faith in the Clickup team's goodwill. Would you share how you set up the AIP calls so that someone from our implementation team can pick them up? We have paused ClickUp implementation for 18 months now, waiting for this feature...

J'Dian Bennett

Artem Kurganskiy, can you please help the group out and tell us what you did because ClickUp won't help us?

Artem Kurganskiy

Szymon Piech J'Dian Bennett Hi guys, so I built this externally in n8n (Make or Zapier work the same way, it is a simple flow).

Fire a webhook on task update. The payload's

history_items[0]

already tells you which field changed, the old and new value, and who changed it. Then send an empty "Update task" request: unlike "Get task", the response includes

parent

and

subtasks

. Branch on those two, pull the target's fields the same way, and only write if the target field is empty, otherwise you build an infinite loop.

Three things that are not obvious and will bite you:

Your own writes retrigger the webhook. Drop every event where
history_items[0].user.id
is your automation's own account, or you get execution storms that spill onto unrelated workflows.
People fields need
{"value":{"add":[ids],"rem":[ids]}}
, a scalar write silently does nothing.
"Parent has no such field" is not "parent's field is empty". Writing anyway returns a 400 and kills the run.

Joey Chua

Szymon Piech Hi Szymon, did Artem’s workaround help your team move forward, or is field inheritance still holding up your ClickUp implementation? I’ve been testing native options and found some partial workarounds. Which parent fields do your subtasks need, and should they copy once or follow later changes? If you’d prefer to discuss your workflow privately, you’re welcome to email me at joeyc5817@gmail.com No need to share workspace or client details here.

Szymon Piech

Hi Joey Chua, The use of third party platform is not ideal, and so Yes, we are still held up... I'd love to learn the native workaround. In our application, it is enough if they copy once. 
I have been testing few options, and it's frustrating to say the least. 
1) Create subtask flow from templates - the template path is ideal from the workflow perspective and the relationships, but looses all ability of copying custom fields...
2) create tasks by automations... this creates a massive mount of automations and... looses the relationships/dependencies! 
At the moment, we have lost trust in the provider's intention to tackle this problem, and we are trying to adjust the processes so we work to the strengths of the system rather than trying to recreate our process within it...
What we found:
Rather than creating separate tasks for the workflow, we are trying to implement workflow based on statuses - which makes it easier to keep on top of custom fields and reduces the number of automation triggers... (another fatal flaw of ClickUp - automation numbers do not follow the number of paid users!!! very shady tactic)

Joey Chua

Hi Szymon Piech , thanks for explaining—that helps. 
The native option I tested uses a “Create subtask” automation to copy the triggering parent’s Customer and Due date into a predefined subtask. It worked for those fields, but I haven’t verified it with a full template or its dependencies, so it may overlap with the limitations you’ve already found.
Could you share one simple example of the parent fields you need copied and the subtasks/dependencies your template creates? An anonymised screenshot is fine. That would help me check whether the workaround offers anything useful for your setup.

Szymon Piech

Joey Chua After last night announcement of a forced upgrade and yet another 30% price hike (second year in row), we are not sure if we will fully implement clickup at all, we have paused all implementation activities... The way it's going, prioritising AI over the core functionalities it is increasingly not the tool that we were originally recommending the business to go for... I was hoping Clickup management would wake up from the AI bubble, as it is unsustainable - it certainly is not the case any more...

Joey Chua

Szymon Piech thanks for the update. That puts the inheritance issue in a wider context—understandable that you’d pause implementation while reassessing whether ClickUp is still the right fit.

I appreciate you sharing your experience, and hope your team finds a setup that works well for the business.

Jason Moseley

I can't understand by this still isn't prioritized. It's frustrating having to use other external tools to complete this functionality.

Joey Chua

Jason Moseley Hi Jason, I’ve been testing native options for copying parent fields into subtasks. I’d be happy to share the partial workarounds I found and see whether any could reduce your reliance on external tools.
What are you using currently, and what still causes extra work or problems?
If you prefer to discuss privately, you can email me at joeyc5817@gmail.com

DANIELE RODRIGUES LIMA

This suggestion is from November 2019, has 5.2 thousand votes and is not yet on the implementation panel. That doesn't really make sense considering that other suggestions, with very few user signals, have already been implemented.
ClickUp, as a tool that seeks to stand out in the market, should have understood that user satisfaction is fundamental. In addition, when several people point out the need for an improvement, this represents only a sample of a much larger group of affected users.
This implementation is taking too long, especially considering the degree of importance it has.

EASE Co-op

Can this be moved up the priority list, ClickUp team? This is another standard feature in other project management tools that I would expect from ClickUp.

Veronica Brock

This would have a huge impact for our team. We need to view data across several custom fields. Most of those custom fields are set at the task level and we have had to build custom automations outside of ClickUp to set the values for subtasks via API. Even then, there are ways for individual subtasks to end up with incorrect or incomplete data in those fields. We would love to use more native ClickUp dashboards and visualizations for our data but we can't do that until we are able to set these values at the task level and trust that every subtask will inherit the proper values!

Joey Chua

Veronica Brock Hi Veronica, I’ve been testing ways to reduce missing or incorrect subtask fields and the manual cleanup they cause in dashboards. I’d be happy to share the partial workarounds I’ve tested and compare them with your existing automation.
Is this still an issue for your team, and which fields cause the most trouble?
If you prefer to discuss privately, you can email me at joeyc5817@gmail.com

Kate Archdeacon

This would be a gamechanger for me - it's hard to consistently take advantage of the complexity offered by ClickUp when the task of assigning the complexity is manual. Please do make it a priority? As a solo PM, I'd preference this over further AI functions in the program.

Wim Delfs

Kate Archdeacon Couldn’t agree more. As useful as AI can be, it’s hard not to wonder why we keep getting more AI features while basic functionality like this (or PDF thumbnail previews) is still waiting on the backlog after years of requests.

Joey Chua

Kate Archdeacon Hi Kate, I’ve tested a few partial workarounds that could reduce repeatedly filling in subtask fields. I’d be happy to share the steps and see whether any fit your workflow as a solo PM.
Is this still taking up time for you, and which fields do you find yourself entering repeatedly?
If you prefer to discuss privately, you can email me at joeyc5817@gmail.com

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