Show task editing tools (indent/outdent/add tasks) instead of hiding them when task list is not sorted by line number and give error messaging to explain use | Community
Skip to main content
Level 2
February 2, 2024
New

Show task editing tools (indent/outdent/add tasks) instead of hiding them when task list is not sorted by line number and give error messaging to explain use

  • February 2, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 506 views

Description - Currently if a user sorts the task list by something other than task number, the tools for indenting/outdenting and adding tasks above/below the line become inaccessible. Instead of making them inaccessible, show those tools and pop up error messages telling the user the task list needs to be sorted by task number to use this feature and give them a button to immediately resort their task list by task number to proceed.

 

Why is this feature important to you - Users are constantly sorting their list by another column, not realizing this, and then getting extremely frustrated when they cannot find the indent/outdent and add task above/below tools.  I have users run into this issue pretty consistently.

 

How would you like the feature to work -  It would be a more user friendly approach to instead show the user the tools and tell them that they can't use them without re-sorting their task list by task number. It would be even better if you could also give them the option to do that re-sort in the error pop up so they can proceed.

 

Current Behaviour - The tools for indent/outdent and adding task above/below just disappear and cannot be found. They do not indicate why they disappeared or what step needs to be taken to fix the issue.

3 replies

Level 3
April 1, 2024

This is an excellent idea!

Level 1
June 10, 2026

Took me more than 30 minutes to figure out where the indent icon went for my project view.  

KatherineLa
Community Advisor
Community Advisor
June 15, 2026

That’s one of our more common support tickets for ‘Workfront is broken’. I’d love at least an error message telling them what the problem is, if possible. 

In our instance, we did go through the core default views that our team use, and disabled sorting for any column where it just didn’t make sense to sort by in the first place. That did reduce at least a few tickets. 

Alternately, I wish there were some MUCH more obvious visual way that indicated which column was currently being used as the sort so people weren’t looking for the teeny arrow icon that often overlaps with the column separator graphics.