Task Name Won't Retain in a Report

[JillAc]

I am trying to make a Task Report that has ONE filter - Task Name Equals Webinar.

Every time I try to make that filter it won't accept this. I have dozens of projects that meet this criteria, yet it automatically changes from Task Name to Task ID. I cannot get Task Name to stick. What is going on?

[skyehansen]

I think the name filter is kind of like a typeahead field. In those cases, using "equals" will enable you to pick exactly one existing Webinar task, and it will then translate to task ID.

If this is the case, you should probably use "contains" which will be much less specific.

[JillAc]

That makes sense, but not what I want. Is there a way to get a task name report? Will all tasks that have taskname=Webinar have the same ID? When I select one from the dropdown it limits it to one project from 2018!

[skyehansen]

every task has a different ID. This is why you have to go with "contains Webinar" rather than "equals Webinar", or use something else, like "everything with the same template task ID", for example.

[JillAc]

That's crapola. I can't find anything else unique about this field. It's not a parent or child, we always use the same template, and there are 6 more fields in each project that use the word Webinar. This is a big bummer. I could make it a milestone task but now I have to go into all the projects and make that task a milestone. I can't think of anything else. Thanks for your help, as always you are quick to reply!

[skyehansen]

if you always use the same template, and this task is always the same task in the template, just use "Template Task ID = Webinar" (and pick the right template task).

[Jason_JB]

I agree with the frustration on this one and Skye's approach.

We added a custom field to our projects that we call "task - event".  This is a picklist field that we can then use for reporting, updates, etc of a specific type of task.  Some examples we have flagged are project plan set, "start of build", and "go-live".

[Sheri_Whitten · Accepted solution]

Here's what I did for that type of filter for our tasks named "Archive". I initially created the task report filter with the standard builder, and picked Task >> Name = Archive, which then switched it to ID upon saving and returned one result. Which makes sense because, as Skye mentioned, there is a unique ID assigned to everything. Then I switched my filter to Text Mode, changed ID to name and then my report returned all the tasks that were named "Archive". Maybe that would work for you?

name=Archive
name_Mod=in

[JillAc]

You are a genius! That worked!

[Sheri_Whitten]

So glad that worked for you, Jill!