Distributed tasks

Distributed tasks allow you to create subtasks, which you can assign to different people at once and also assign to each person estimated time they got to finish the task. All updates within each of the subtasks will be added to the journal of every other subtask, therefore creating a sort of shared task but assigned to different users.

This feature is great if you have a number of people who are working on one task. It forms a parent task and subtasks, but in a form, where updates from the subtasks are projected into the parent task. So you have all the information about the progress in one place. This feature has to be turned on, on Task type level. Open Administration >> Task types >> specific Task type. Find the Distributed tasks check box.

For better understanding, a distributed task is a standard task with a "distributed" Task type, which creates subtasks in a Task type other than the "distributed" Task type itself. Otherwise, subtasks would also have the same "distributed" Task type, which is not possible in order to prevent infinite task distribution. Therefore, those subtasks must not be in a Task type that is marked as distributed. For that purpose is automatically selected the first non-distributed Task type in the sorted list of Task types in Administration. If there is no "non-distributed" Task type enabled on the project, you can not create any distributed tasks.

If you choose this Task type while creating a new task, you will be able to distribute the task right away. In this box, you can add users and you can even assign particular estimated time for each user.

When you create distributed task like this, subtasks will be created automatically, with names of users you added, as you can see below. I also draw the example of how it looks when comments are copied into the parent task.

Corner situations

• A distributed task cannot be created when Task type of the distributed task include some "Required" fields as defined by "Task field permissions" settings in Workflow.
• A distributed task cannot be created when estimated time is not filled for all the assignees.
• A distributed task is a standard task with a "distributed" Task type, which creates subtasks in a Task type other than the "distributed" Task type itself. Otherwise, subtasks would also have the same "distributed" Task type, which is not possible in order to prevent infinite task distribution. Therefore, those subtasks must not be in a Task type that is marked as distributed. For that purpose is automatically selected the first non-distributed Task type in the sorted list of Task types in Administration (see below).
• If there is no "non-distributed" Task type enabled on the project, you can not create any distributed tasks.
• A distributed task must always be created as a new task, you cannot create a distributed task by copying or cloning an already existing task (to prevent possible issues).
• It is recommended to not assign any assignee to distributed tasks because it is not beneficial and the assignee cannot be changed later. Therefore, we recommend disabling the assignee field on distributed trackers.
• Distributed tasks cannot be created in WBS.