About checklists and subtasks

You can either create a checklist or a subtask under a task. See video below.
This feature is available in the all plans under the On My Plate personal tasks. For project and recipe tasks, this is a premium feature for the paid plans.

How-to Video

Which to use when?

When to use a checklist: Use the checklist feature when you need to bullet list items to help you break down your task into smaller pieces and you don't need to assign them to anyone else, nor do you need to give them separate due dates.

When to use full subtasks: Use the full subtask feature if you need to break down your task unto smaller pieces and you do need to assign them to someone else, or you do need to give them separate due dates. Note, that you can only create one level of full subtasks, but you can add a checklist to subtasks if you need one more level deep for your work breakdown structure.

Adding a checklist inside a task

1. Open a task in the Description view.
2. Under the description click "Add checklist item" button.
3. Enter you label and click the Add button or hit enter key. When you hit enter, it gets another item line ready for fast sequencing. To stop this, just hit enter one more time or click outside of the item.
4. To the left is a small progress button. Click this to mark it done. It will turn green. You can click it again to toggle it back to not started.
5. You can edit or delete the checklist item by clicking on the label. To the right is a trash can for deleting.
6. You can drag and reorder a checklist item using the gray bars to the right of the item.

You can add checklist items to project tasks as well as recipe tasks. For recipe tasks, the difference is the progress button will be hidden until a project is created from that recipe. If you (as a project admin) creates a recipe from a project that has checklist items under tasks, you will first be prompted to confirm whether or not your new recipe should inherit those task checklist items.

Adding a full subtask under a task

1. Open a task in the Description view.
2. Under the description click "Add full subtask" button.
3. Enter the name of your new subtask and hit your enter key (or click create if you're on a mobile device).
4. You can continue to create the next subtask, or just hit enter again to remove the next create subtask bar.

 Click here to see this article for how to move a subtask to another location.

How a subtask and its parent task is connected (or not)

When a task is turned into a subtask, that original task becomes a parent task, which really becomes a dummy task or a folder-like task. The parent will then reflect what is going on with its children tasks.

• Dates. The parent task will display the earliest date and the latest date found in all of its subtasks as its start date and due date respectfully. You cannot change dates at the parent task level. You can only change dates at the subtask level and those dates will reflect back up to the parent.
• Duration. The parent task will display duration (on mouse hover) only if the parent task has a start and due date, which is rolled up from its subtasks. You cannot change duration at the parent task level. 
• Progress before creating subtask. If you have a task with a progress set to In Progress or Done AND THEN you create its first subtask, you will find that Pie will automatically remove that original task's progress. This is by design. We're doing this since we cannot assume if the subtask should have a progress set or not. Therefore, Pie is not making this decision and will leave it up to you to decide what the states should be.
• Progress after creating subtask. The parent task will display the progress roll up from its subtasks. For example, if one subtask is marked done and the second subtask is not started and there are only two subtasks and they both have the same duration, the parent task will automatically show 50% done. HOWEVER, you can override all of the subtasks' progress by changing the parent's progress to either done, to mark all subtasks done, or not started, to mark all subtasks to not started.
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• Dependencies. The parent task cannot contain a dependency, but rather all of its subtasks can have dependencies. A parent task will not indicate if its subtasks have any dependencies.
• Posts. Posts are independent of the parent and its subtasks.
• Data Fields. Data fields are independent of the parent and its subtasks. 
• Color Tags. Color tags are independent of the parent and its subtasks.
• Text Tags. Text tags are independent of the parent and its subtasks.

What happens to the parent task when creating its first subtask?

If a task already has states, such as completed progress, has dates, or has a duration, the question arrises as to what to do with that information if that task is turned into a parent task with subtasks. Since the Pie application cannot predict if the user will want these conditions to remain or to be inherited by the new subtasks, we decided to keep it simple and do two things. One, remove it from the parent. Two, tell you we removed it. Here are the conditions that change when creating a subtask.

• Started with progress. If a task is marked done or some other progress and you create a subtask under that task, the parent's progress will be removed.
• Original task already has a duration. If a task has a defined duration, such as 3 days, and you create a subtask under that task, the parent's duration will be removed. 
• Started with dates. If a task has a start or due date and you create a subtask under that task, the parent's dates will be removed. 
• Started with people assignments. It's subtasks will inherit its parent's people assignment.
• Started with role assignments. It's subtasks will inherit its parent's role assignment.
• Started with dependencies. If a task has a dependency and you create a subtask under that task, the parent's dependency will be removed.