Work planning with subtasks

The With subtasks work planning option offers a bottom-up approach to work planning in Scoro. It is designed for teams that need to break down multi-step deliverables involving different specialists and dependencies into granular, manageable pieces of work without losing the bigger picture.

With the subtask mode, you can:

• Keep your time budget and project plan separate: The quoted hours serve as the time budget ceiling for the deliverable (the parent task). Planned hours are assigned at the subtask level and roll up to the parent task total.
• Create two-level task lists: Create parent tasks for your high-level deliverables and add subtasks to break down the required work into smaller action items, assigning them to the relevant doers.

You can enable the With subtasks work planning option under Settings > Work and projects > Calendar and tasks.

1. Plans and availability

Subtasks are available in the following Scoro plans:

• Current: Growth, Performance, and Enterprise
• Legacy: Standard, Pro, and Ultimate

For more information, see our Plans & Pricing page.

2. Quote-to-task flow with subtasks

Let's look at how the quote-to-tasks flow in Scoro looks with subtasks:

1. Create the quote:
   Start by building out the proposal for your client by creating a quote. For deliverables where multiple roles or doers will deliver the work, use the estimation matrix to quickly and conveniently add all the necessary collaborators and their estimated hours. This helps you keep the client-facing proposal compact and high-level.
   
2. Create a project:
   Use the Create project button on your quote to quickly create a project with key details prefilled from the quote, laying a solid foundation for the Quoted vs Actual table to track project progress and financial performance.
   
3. Create parent tasks from the quote:
   Open the project task list and click the Create tasks from quote button on the quote to convert the high-level deliverables you quoted into parent tasks.
   • These tasks won’t have any hours in the Planned column because the planned hours will roll up as you add subtasks. However, the quoted hours will be visible in the time breakdown chart on the parent task.
   • If you assigned specific team members via the estimation matrix, they will be automatically assigned to the parent tasks.
     
4. Plan the work further with subtasks:
   The time breakdown chart on the parent task will display the time budget for the roles based on your quote.
   Now you can start planning the required work in more detail with subtasks:
   • Click the Add subtask button, enter the name of the subtask, and press Enter. Repeat this to add multiple subtasks in a row.
     
   • Alternatively, you can add subtasks from the project task list by expanding the task and adding them one by one. You can also add task bundles as subtasks – click the three-dot icon next to the Add Subtask button and select Add task bundle as subtasks.
     
   • As you create subtasks and assign hours to them, the planned hours will roll up to the parent task level. Use the time breakdown chart to compare the original quoted hours (the budget) with the planned hours. This helps you monitor progress and ensure your detailed plan stays within your initial budget.
     

3. Best practices when using the With subtasks mode

3.1. Time logging

Knowing where to log the time spent working is essential for transparent and accurate project data and reporting. We highly recommend following these practices:

• For specialists and doers:
  • Always log your time directly on the subtask. This ensures that the hours you log are linked to the correct part of the project plan.
• For project managers:
  • If the work you're doing is related to a specific part of the project, create a subtask and log your time on that subtask.
  • If you are performing high-level coordination or project management that isn’t tied to a specific action item, you may log time directly on the parent task.

3.2. Default task durations

To ensure that your parent tasks always start at 0 planned hours, we recommend setting your default task duration to zero. This applies to both regular tasks (without any subtasks) and parent tasks.

Learn more about these individual preferences in the My calendar and tasks article.

4. Is work planning with subtasks the right fit for your site?

Not all teams need the level of granularity provided by subtasks. Here's a simple decision guide you can use if you're unsure which work planning option to select for your site:

• Choose "With subtasks" if you need to break work down into granular steps, have different specialists collaborating on one deliverable, and want to ensure your detailed plan stays under a budget ceiling.
• Choose "Without subtasks" if you want to use a simple single-level task structure where quoted hours equal the planned time, with the option to split that time among multiple assignees.