Status: Wait on Dependencies – CoordinateHQ Support

How it works

Set up a large plan with assignments to your customers without showing them the tasks they are assigned to until you are ready for them to start working on them
Clean up the plan for your customers - they will not see tasks until the dependencies are met or the start date passes
Trickle tasks in to your customer's My Tasks tab without overwhelming them with a bunch of tasks all at once.
Set up relative due dates based on when the status changes from Wait on Dependencies to In Progress
Automate your plan with blocker tasks and Wait on Dependencies statuses to automatically set tasks in progress and send task assigned emails to your customers as the blocker tasks get completed

Set the status to Wait on Dependencies inside the task modal

or click on the icon next to the task inside the plan

Automate your plan

To make things easy, I have named my tasks Step 1 - Step 5. We will set dependencies on these tasks in order. Step 1 is blocking Step 2 which is blocking Step 3 etc.

You MUST set the Status to be Wait on Dependencies if you wish to automate your plan using blocker tasks. If you do not set this status, nothing will happen regarding status updates (from not started to in progress) when the blocker tasks are completed

Let's select the first task. Make sure that the Task Status is set to Wait on Dependencies
Inside of the task modal, you will notice a Dependencies option on the right hand side. If you click it, you will see 3 new options appear
1. Related Goal
2. Blocks
3. Is Blocked by
You can use Blocks and Is Blocked by interchangeably, you just need to make sure you have your dependencies set correctly.

To clear things up:
1. Blocks refers to "This currently selected task is blocking the task that I will select from the Blocks dropdown"
2. Is Blocked by refers to "This currently selected task is being blocked by the task that I will select from the Is Blocked by dropdown"
Since in my example, I have selected Step 1, I want to have that be the first task I must complete. Therefore, I will select Blocks and select Step 2 from the dropdown
I will continue this for all my tasks. Step 2 will be set to Blocks Step 3 etc.

Note: Step 2 is set as Blocked By Step 1 and Blocks Step 3. This is exactly what I want
Once you are ready to kick off the set of automated dependencies tasks, set the first task to In Progress. This will notify the person that task is assigned to.
As the tasks get completed, the next task in the order of dependencies will become in progress, any relative due dates will apply (more on that in the section below), and emails will be sent out to the Project manager as well as the person assigned.

Setting Relative Due Dates

You cannot have a due date set and use relative due dates at the same time. As soon as you set a relative due date, your currently set due date will disappear.

I have set Step 2 to be Due 5 days relative to when the Status of this task will change from Wait on Dependencies to In Progress.

This means that the second that the Status turns to In Progress, the date will be calculated from 'Today' to 'Today + 5 days'.

Note: The relative date calculator will keep track of what you have set inside your Work Week in settings and skip any holidays and weekends. So + 5 days could be 7 or more calendar days depending how many holidays and weekends are during that time and the time the task was completed (after work hours).

Note: If the task will change to ANY OTHER status, it will not work, the due date will ONLY be set if the task is changed to in progress.

Since I am using Dependencies on this task, as soon as Step 1 task is complete, the Task Status of this task (Step 2) will automatically change to In Progress and the relative date calculator will set the Due Date on this task correctly.

Using Wait on Dependencies status to hide tasks in the My Tasks Tab

Any task with the status of Wait on Dependencies will not be shown in the My Tasks tab regardless who it is assigned to. You can use this status to keep the My Tasks area clear of tasks that are not quite ready to be worked on at the moment.

Here is a plan where there are 4 tasks assigned to this a user, and the status is set to Wait on Dependencies

Navigating to the My Tasks tab for that user shows no tasks.

Note: as soon as you set your Task status to anything other than Wait on Dependencies, and that task is assigned to a customer, they will immediately get an email saying the task has been assigned to them and it will appear in their My Tasks page.

Using Wait on Dependencies status to hide tasks from your customers in the Project Plan Tab

This is for people who want to share the plan with their customers for full transparency, but want to hide a few tasks temporarily until they are ready to be worked on.

With the plan set up this way (notice one of the tasks - Step 1 - is set to the status of Wait on Dependencies):

Navigate to Settings > Advanced. Get to settings by clicking on your name in the upper right corner of the top navigation bar

Inside the Advanced page, toggle the option Hide Tasks from Collaborators when Waiting on Dependencies

This is what the plan looks like for all collaborators (notice that that the plan no longer shows the task Step 1):

Note: This is ONLY for collaborators, all of the licensed account users are able to see everything inside of the Plan tab