By default, automations will execute actions on tasks, boards, lists, or users that trigger the Rule. However, there are some scenarios where you may want to take actions, or check conditions, on the parent, sub task, or a dependent task.

Perform Action On allows you to set where you would like the action of an automation or condition to apply.

Perform Action On provides one or more of the following options depending on how the automation is being applied and the type of action it is:

Fire the action on the task, board, list, or user that triggered the rule. Fire on "itself".

Fire the action on the Parent of the task, board, list, or user that triggered the Rule.

Fire the action on any tasks that are dependent on the task that triggered the Rule

Most of the time Self will be the setting you need, which is why it’s the default. However, when Rules aren’t firing as expected, it’s important to always look back and understand what triggered the rule. Was it a parent task or a sub task?

If it’s a sub task that is triggering the rule, you may need to configure your actions accordingly.

Let’s take this automation as an example:

In this case, the task triggering the Rule is a sub task because of the condition Type = Sub task. If you want to move the parent task of the sub task, Perform Action On should be set to Parent task.

Perform Action On is also available in conditions, allowing you the check conditions at different levels. It is the last field in each condition row.

For example, we could add this condition to the above example:

Now the rule will only fire if the Parent of the sub task being marked complete has the tag Engineering.

Similar to actions, when Rules aren’t firing as expected, it’s important to always look back and understand what triggered the rule. Was it a parent task or a sub task? This may change the Perform Action On in the conditions you have set.