"Update Task Name" Action (ex: Bulk Rename Tasks based on Custom Fields) | Voters

"Update Task Name" Action (ex: Bulk Rename Tasks based on Custom Fields)

completed

Zoran Jablanovic

There are always a bunch of tasks/subtasks across different projects in the workspace that have the same name, for that reason usually it's wise to have the project name or an acronym as a part of each task name.
Let's say I have a list template with many different tasks that I use in every project. Starting a new project, I'd load the list template, but then I'd have to rename each task manually adding some small text to each task name.
We need an automation, to bulk rename tasks, adding a value from a certain custom field.
It would be something like.
Trigger could be anything
Action:
rename task: 
custom field value + existing task name
For example, a Task called "Website", containing a custom field "customer" set to a value "Ikea" would be renamed to "Ikea Website".
Similar functions exist when setting up an automation to duplicate or create a new task.
Or add a rename function in the bulk action toolbar, to be able to modify task names all at once.

June 2, 2023

Cody Becker

Fantastic! Already put it to use. Thanks

Tim Roth

Thanks for the update, but I'm missing the option to add something like the current month. Is that something you're working on?

Zach

marked this post as

completed

🪄 Ta-da! 
You can now automatically update the titles of your tasks and subtasks with the new "change task name" action - saving you time and effort. Take advantage of variables and custom fields from the triggering task to make your updates even smarter.
We hope this enhancement helps you cut down on manual work and makes organizing your projects even easier!

Devin Shea

Zach amazing! this will help a ton. as a V2 of this, can we get a version that you can use through the bulk action toolbar.

Extra points for Dynamic names in task, list and folder templates 😉

Ethan Whitted

Zach Amazing, thank you for adding this!!

Shaun Sullivan

Zach fully agree with Devin. Great first step! If you can add folder and list names in the selection this would be amazing.

Shreyansh Jain

Hi Zach,
This or other task name automation created a bug that is leading to incorrect name creation by dates in my current automation.
More Context:
I have an automation that creates and names a task in this format: "Standup: Date"
Custom Field: Next Day
Standup: [[Next Day]] with next day's start date and due date.
But now I am getting results
Standup: [[Next Day - 1]] with next day's start date and due date.
Just some issue with name where as date to date fields are copied well.

TaeLynn Perez

Looking forward to this. We need to be able to auto-add a task name prefix to all tasks in a certain location / of a certain type.

Alejandro Castagnino

Has anyone been able to solve it? You have a thousand options minus being able to create a task with a particular name from a form

Rakesh Rathore

when we are getting this ?

Zach

Rakesh Rathore: ETA: less than 3 days

Searchie

You could also do this when importing a template. It could for example add the listname to the task name.
This is a sort of Incremental task naming with a usefull prefix of sufix. 
I currently do this with Make. But I prefer it's possible without external software.

Zach

coming soon

Jeff MacNeill

Zach Wicked!

Zach

Jeff MacNeill: Shipping this month!

Josh Ankenmann

Zach Great! Please make the

list

the task is in one of the possible parameters for use in the task name! We always label tasks with a client abbreviation so we can find them in lists & reports

Shaun Sullivan

Zach plus one for this request. We also use list name as client names and this would be amazing to be able to rename tasks.

Oleksandr Zalishchuk

Zach That's super good news. Thank you!

Rakesh Rathore

Zach when it will be live ? we are waiting...

Searchie

Zach Can you also use Placeholders (dynamic fields) that use the List name ?

Yulian David

Zach Eso sería excelente!!!!!!

Zach

marked this post as

in progress

Lesford “LJ” McKenzie

Zach So what we are currently running into is that we title our task template subtasks with [Dynamic Name] so that we can utilize the AI to auto update the placeholder based on information provided by the hubspot task creation automation for new hubspot contacts. The issue is that the renaming automation we created does not always trigger or work correctly. We truly would just like some way to add some type of dynamic renaming convention for tasks and subtasks so that when we create a task it automatically can update certain fields based on data passed from the automation or info provided during task creation.

Zach

marked this post as

planned

Daniel Urbano

Zach Would be great if you do at least the following:

Rename tasks entirely
Add Text to the left (before) original Task Name
Add Text to the right (after) of the Task Name
Replace Words/specific text only

Zach

Daniel Urbano: What we can ship extremely quickly here that I believe will solve most of the use cases being requested is the following. So it would replace the whole title with whatever you specify like so. 
Would you rather us ship this version or wait longer and try and implement everything you've asked for.
Thank you!

Contractor 4B

Zach for me the issue is that I create tasks and then - when those are populated with info - I duplicate those tasks because they are broadly similar but slightly different. So this use case you've sent doesn't quite work for me as all I want to be able to change task names en masse when tasks are in lists.
ie: Task 1) <task name> XYZ   ->   [based off of a task template]
Task 2) <task name> abc   ->   [duplicated from Task 1)]
Task 3) <task name> 123   ->   [duplicated from Task 1)]
Currently i need to rename each task individually - which can be really cumbersome when taking subtasks into account as well. An option to rename name based off of custom fields in the bulk action toolbar would be incredibly useful.

Lukas Moser

Zach please ship this one; looks amazing

Greg Cox

Zach I'd vote to proceed, looks like it would solve a good chunk of the use cases. Would it be able to rename a recurring task? e.g. a task called "Social Posts - August 2025" recurs with the same name...could it rename it to "Social Posts - September 2025" on recurrence? (If not, I'd still vote to proceed but this would be a nice have).

Anna Chviedaruk

Zach so cool! this is very much needed, thanks guys. Will it also be possible to change this not through automation, but just manually for the projects already created? This could be added to the Bulk Action toolbar for example.

Eric Plante

Zach Ship it!

→