Relations between cards: parend and child cards
Relations help you decompose large tasks and monitor their progress. You can use relations to build a hierarchy of tasks.
In this article you will learn
why you need relations between cards and how to use them;
how to add relations to a card (create parent and child cards);
how to track the progress of child and parent cards;
how to delete a relation between cards.
Why you need relations between cards and how to use them
Suppose you have top-level tasks.
These tasks consist of some list of subtasks, which in turn are assigned to different teams.
You create a board for the top-level tasks.
Then you create boards for the subtasks according to your production hierarchy.
And you link the tasks on the top-level board to the lower-level boards.
Let's explain with an example:
The marketing team prepares material for publication on the company blog. Let's call this task "Publish a blog post about". The process involves the customer, the editor, the designer and the layout designer. Each is responsible for a different piece of the task.
If all of them work on one card, who and when should move the card? How does the owner know at what stage each subtask is?
FlowFast solves this problem by having the "Publish blog posts" task owner create child cards –subtasks – and assign a person to these subtasks. The subtasks can be created on the performer boards.
While working on the task, the statuses of the subtasks will change. The statuses of child cards will be visible in the parent one. So, the manager can find out the status of the task, just entering the main board.
There are four child cards for each subtask. When the manager enters the board, they will see that two of them are ready, and all that is left is to make illustrations and lay out the material. No one needs to chat and wait for a reply to find out.
How to add relations to a card
You can add a link to an existing card
Click on the purple plus sign n the card.
Click "Parent card" if you want to add a parent task, or "Child card" for a child task.
Enter part of the task name and the system will highlight the appropriate options. Or select the path to the card yourself. You can also paste the link to the card.
Use the keyboard or mouse to select the required variant.
Both parent and child cards will automatically show all related tasks in the field Relations.
In the line "Relations" (in parent and child cards) on the right side you will see purple filter buttons:
"Hide queued relations",
"Hide in progress relations",
"Hide done relations".
Use filters to make it easier to visually work with the card.
You can also create a new card while creating relations
Click the purple plus sign in the card.
Click "Parent card" if you want to add a parent task, or "Child card" for a child task.
Click "Create card" button at the top.
In the window that opens, select the location of the associated card - this can be the executor board for child tasks or the main project board for parent tasks.
Specify the name and other details in the configured mandatory fields.
There is another way – select the location of the new card first, and only then create it:
Choose whichever path is convenient for you.
Creating child cards from checklist items
If you have a checklist with subtasks in your main card, you can turn checklist items into several child cards within a couple of clicks.
This feature is available on Standard and PRO tariffs.
Click on three dots to the right of the checklist title.
From the drop-down menu, select "Convert checklist to child cards".
In the window that appears, select the board, column and track where the child cards will be created. Here you can also immediately set the due date, size and types for the child cards.
Click the "Convert" button.
By default the checklist itself is deleted when converting the checklist to child cards, but in the same window you can choose whether to delete the checklist in the main card or keep it.
There is also an option not to make the cards child ones.
How to track the progress of child tasks
To do this, just open the parent task, you can see the picture showing the status of the cards in the List representation.
Besides, you can select "Table" display mode. A table appears with information on child cards, including their statuses.
How to track progress of a parent task
On the frontend of the parent card you will see a progress line and a progress bar for the subtasks. As the child cards are completed, these indicators will change to show the progress of the parent task.
In general, the formula for the progress line is as follows:
% progress = (Number of checklist items made + number of child tasks completed) / (Number of all checklist items + number of all child tasks).
You can also set up automatic movement of related cards. Then when you move at least one of the child cards to the "In progress" column, the parent card will also move to the "In progress" column. And when all child cards have been completed, the parent card will move to the "In progress" column.
👉 Read more about this feature in the article Automatic movement of related cards
How to remove relations between cards
Open a card, place the cursor on the desired card in the "Relations" section, and click on the cross to the right of the card to remove relation.
You may also find the following articles useful:
👉 Automatic movement of related cards
👉 Checklists in FlowFast cards