Workload Time Estimates don't include subtask time estimates | Voters

Workload Time Estimates don't include subtask time estimates

Lauren Nitroy

I'm noticing that Workload Time Estimates don't take into consideration subtask time estimates, rather just the main task time entry.
When a subtask has time estimate assigned and the main task has just a rollup total of all subtask time estimate (not it's own estimate), the workload time estimate doesn't include the subtask time estimates. 
For larger, multi-step projects, we only estimate our subtasks. Having the Workload pull in just the main task time estimate is inaccurate and only represents a portion of the total amount our team members are working on.

February 24, 2020

Vasil Enchev

Looking at this task in 2026 for the Workload View
, what is the expected behavior when both subtasks and parent tasks have estimates (e.g., the parent task is estimated to take 4 hours, and the subtasks are estimated to take 40 hours)? What should we display?
Additionally, if child tasks have deadlines and parent tasks have deadlines, how do we determine where to mark this information on the workload for calculating the workload out of capacity? 
Or do we roll up estimates only for subtasks without dates? 
Curious to hear what everyone is thinking is the best approach. Otherwise, it doesn't sound like something hard to achieve.

Lennie Axelsson

Vasil Enchev
I think the times should be added together so as to behave like in list view. In your example the task should display 44h
Dates should be from parent task only. I would expect that as long as all subtasks are completed within the parent tasks dates its all good. 
All times of all subtasks should be rolled up, regardless of weather the subtasks have a deadline or not, or the dates for the subtasks is actually outside the parent tasks range.

Szymon Piech

Vasil Enchev I think there should be a setting for rollup:
a) Add parent and children estimates (deadline whichever is later children or parent)
b) sum children's estimates into parent (deadline based on children)
c) parent takes precedence - allowance/check against (highlight if children's estimates or deadlines exceed parent allowance)
Future...
d) this would probably require some advanced logic, but there could be an apportionment feature based on parents' estimate and proportion of childrens estimates...

Beatrice Altendorfer

Vasil Enchev Ideally, if the subtasks don’t have due dates, I’d like to see all the time estimates in the parent task. And if only the parent task has an assignee, all subtasks should be included in the workload of the person assigned to the parent task.

If the subtasks have due dates or their own assignees, these details will be displayed for the respective people and dates.

Vasil Enchev

What’s bothering me is - let's imagine that the parent task is scheduled for 20 hours, which shows up in Workload as an even 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 spread.
Once you add subtask estimates, this only seems to work if those subtasks don’t have dates, right?
Let’s say there’s another 20 hours from 3 subtasks without dates, plus 10 hours from a subtask that does have dates.
In that case, would you expect the Workload to show:
•	8 / 8 / 8 / 8 / 8 — meaning only dateless tasks roll up evenly, or
•	10 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 10 — meaning everything rolls up into the parent total? (in this case where subtask with dates is showing on the workload that would appear broken. 
In the first case, with 8 / 8 / 8 / 8 / 8, the subtask with dates would only count on its actual scheduled dates. So if those dates happen to fall within the same period, it could still become 10 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 10. But if they fall on different days, it might look more like:
2 / 2 / 0 / 0 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 8 / 8
…assuming it started 4 days earlier in the previous week, and weekends are 0 / 0.

Vasil Enchev

Beatrice Altendorfer: This aligns with my thinking as well: subtasks with dates should not roll up.
On the topic of assignees, what would you expect to happen if the parent task has 2 assignees, but the subtasks have none? Would we show those subtasks under both assignees?
Or would the expectation be that unassigned subtasks stay unassigned, even if the parent has owners?

Beatrice Altendorfer

Vasil Enchev In my case, the person assigned to the parent task is responsible for the subtask as long as the subtask doesn’t have its own assignee, so it would be good if the subtask also appeared under the parent task’s assignee. 
Even if two people are responsible, I would have it show up in both of their workloads. It would then make sense for each person to receive half of the workload.
There is also another scenario for me where the subtask has a person in charge but no due date. In this case, I would prefer that the subtask inherit the due dates from the parent task. In my case the subtasks should normally be completed by the time the parent task is due.

Vasil Enchev

Beatrice Altendorfer: Thanks, this is helpful!

Laura Murphy

When planning projects requiring multiple steps, we create an overall parent task and then build the subtasks from there. The time required for each subtask is entered and displays as a rolled up time required on the day within the parent task. 
However, when reviewing the Workload view, this time rollout up is no included within the overall day's time allocation which causes over-scheduling and project delays.   If I change the time allocation on to the main parent task, but then subtasks have to be rescheduled, this causes inefficiencies by manually calculating the adjusted overall time required.  
Can the workload view please be changed to include the total parent task time taken from subtasks.

Katheryn Hays

This is one of my biggest gripes with the workload view. Ive talked to a rep before and their response was that "yes, we designed it so you assign the actual task to each day to get an accurate time" or something similar. It has made my usage of workload views almost obsolete because i cant just assign a parent task a date. I have to then rememeber to assign every child task, and when viewing the workload, its a mess.

Truc Thi Thanh Tran

In the workload view, the time estimate should roll up as in the list view.. Otherwise it would missed presentation of the workload for the team.

Peter LeDonne

I'm also having this issue! Why are my main tasks showing 0hrs even though when I click on it, it shows the total estimated time rolled up from the subtasks? This pretty well makes workload view unusable.

Richard Bacon

I opened another feature request  as this seems to be ingnored.
My post went like this...
There is a setting in workload view called 'include rollups' which is always on, but what does it do? 
If a subtask is unscheduled (no dates assigned), its estimated time (rollup) will not show in its scheduled parent.
Unnecessary scheduling of multiple subtasks that require some estimated time is a laborious task and also creates massively cluttered workload and timeline views. Surely if you have a scheduled parent task that has unscheduled subtasks with time estimates, it should show that roll up in the workload view? If not, please explain why not? 
This may work effectively in tasks that have no parent (I haven't checked, as that doesn't suit our set up), but subtasks of subtasks really suffer here.
Maybe a simple setting like 'Show unscheduled rollups' or just 'include rollups' that actually works???
Am I missing an obvious reason as to why it works like it does?

Robert McKay

Yes! Would love to see this feature. Doesn't make sense that rolled-up time estimates don't count toward workload.

Aveek Pal

We have multiple sub-tasks under a main task. Not including the time estimate of the main task in the workload view while using the roll up version seems extremely inefficient. Seems like gross oversight on the developer team's part.

Laura Cason

I could be losing it, but I think this is a feature now? A colleague of mine told me she's been using workload with subtasks rolling out for a few weeks. I tested it, and it appears to be a feature now. Was there an update I missed and this is now a feature?

Robert McKay

Laura Cason: Not for me... time estimate still shows up in workload only if it's added directly to the main task, not rolled up from subtasks.

Elias

Brent Evans I can't choose that anymore in workload view, right?

And I have to give the subtasks dates. what does not make sense...

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