Changing A Task's Parent Record

The relationship between Task records and their 'parent' records

Changing which Idea or Task record is some other task record's parent Idea or parent Task is easy, and so is breaking a subtask's link to its parent task. But before you see how to do any of these things, it helps to know a bit about how these records are 'linked' to each other.

Making changes to a task's parent records can only be done by loading the task into a Task Window first.

A Task record always has a link to a single Idea record, which is its 'parent idea'. But,only Task records that are representing a subtask, will have a link to a 'parent' Task record.

There are three Task records shown in the images below. All of them are linked to the same 'parent' Idea record, and each Task record has links to different 'parent' Task records.

The Task below has no 'parent' Task records that it's linked to.

This Task is representing a subtask and is directly linked to a 'parent' task. Its 'parent' task's record is shown in the second image below.

This Task has no parent task that it's linked to, but it's the parent task of Task 3 in the image above.

As a 'parent' Task it will hold the ID numbers of every Subtask record directly linked to it, and the ID numbers of every Subtask record linked to them.

A Task with no parent task links, but it is linked to subtasks of its own.

Using The Task Window To Change A Task Record's Parent Idea Or Parent Task Record

The Task Window has three hyperlinks that you can use to change which parent Idea, or parent Task a task record will be linked to.

The names of these hyperlinks are Change Parent Idea, Change Parent Task, and Set Parent Task To None.

The Task Window has 3 hyperlinks that let you change a Task record's parent records.

Changing A Task's Parent Task

To change which parent task the window's task belongs to just click on the Change Parent Task hyperlink.

When you click the Change Parent Task hyperlink a Task Selection dialog box pops up on the screen.

This dialog box contains a 'record entry' for every Task record in the project, so there might be a lot of them.

In the project being used here, there's 977 tasks so far.

To find and select the parent Task record you want from the list, you have three options.

Use the Search Panel to do a keyword search for the record you're looking for, then single click on it to select it.
Visually scan the list for the record and single click on it to select it.
Open the Parent Task record, copy it's ID number, and then paste that ID number into the Use This Task ID field.

After you've done Step 1 or Step 2 in the list above, then you can either double click on the parent record's entry to have it linked to the Task record as its new parent task. Or, click the Use Selected Record hyperlink.

If you've used Step 3, then as soon as you press the Enter key on your keyboard, that Task record will become the new parent task.

All of these methods are going to close the Task Selection dialog box and return you to the Task Window.

On the right hand side of the window, you'll see that the Task record now displays the ID number of its directly linked parent task.

The Task Window is now showing the parent task's ID.

After the Task record is linked to its parent Task and vice-versa, then all of that Task record's linked child records are also linked to the parent Task record too.

Now the parent task is aware of them and can take you to any of them when you need it to.

The image below shows that Task 1, the parent task of Task 2, is now also linked to Task 3, which is Task 2's subtask.

The parent task gets linked to the task record, and all of the records linked to it.

Changing The Task's Parent Idea

To change which Idea record a Task record (and all of the child records linked to it) belong to, just click the Change Parent Idea hyperlink.

After you click that link, an Idea Selection Dialog Box pops up and you use it to locate and select the new parent Idea record.

To find that record you have 3 options.

Use the Search Panel to do a keyword search for the record you're looking for, then single click on it to select it.
Visually scan the list for the record and single click on it to select it.
Open the parent Idea record, copy it's ID number, and then paste that ID number into the Use This Idea ID field.

Use the Select Idea dialog box to locate and select the new parent Idea record.

After you've done Step 1 or Step 2 in the list above, then you can either double click on the parent record's entry to have it linked to the Task record as its new parent idea. Or, click the Use Selected Record hyperlink.

If you've used Step 3, then as soon as you press the Enter key on your keyboard, that Idea record will become the new parent idea.

All of these methods are going to close the Idea Selection dialog box and return you to the Task Window.

On the right hand side of the window, you'll see that the Task record now displays the ID number of its directly linked parent idea.

The Task record and all of its child records are now linked to the new parent Idea record.

Setting A Task's Parent Task To None

To break the link between a subtask and its parent task, click the Set Parent Task To None hyperlink.

After you click this hyperlink, the window's task record clear's its parent task ID, and the parent task removes its ID to the task.

The parent task also removes the links to all of the subtask's child records from itself.

Now the link between them is broken, and the subtask becomes a task.

To clear a task's parent task, click the Set Parent Task To None hyperlink.

On the right hand side of the window, you'll see that the Parent Task ID is displaying 'None'

The link between the parent task and the subtask and all of its children is broken now.