Siri Shortcuts - Getting Project Title for Task

[Calhistorian]

Hello!

I am looking to compile a plain text distillation of tasks from the Forecast view in OmniFocus through Siri Shortcuts. The use-case here is to be able to copy to clipboard a list of tasks to be completed today that I can add to my bullet journal “style” notes app.

The ideal output would be:

[[Task Title]] - [[Project]]
     - Due Date: [[Due Date]]
     - Tags: [[Tags]]
     - Notes: [[Notes]]

Now I can get everything BUT the project title. Here is the shortcut that I am using to get the following: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/5d8e95fd62ad4c13a1ee378c7a081de7

I have been trying to use the “Database Object” shortcut action, but can’t seem to get the input right, let alone output.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[miguelalfayate]

I am also trying to get the project attached to a task in OF. I think that it is not possible right away. I hope there is someone out there that proves me wrong.

But I found a workaround though. My method would consist in a repeat find items action that would go through all the projects available until it founds the task that matches the search term (that would be the name of the task) and the given project. The moment there is a match, you can extract the project attached to that task. There is obviously a catch: if you have a lot of tasks it would have to go though all of them trying to find them in all the projects you have. This would take a long time.

If someone has a different method please share.

[RogerDowning]

I think you are correct in saying there is not currently a direct way to get the project title for a task in Shortcuts.

I have used the same workaround that you mentioned, which I shared in a previous post on a similar theme.

Getting Project for an Item in Shortcuts app

I don’t believe there is currently a way to get the project name directly, but you can search through each of your projects until you find the matching item. See linked shortcut for an example. Get OF Project For Item If have made a feature request to Omni to add projects and tags to the info returned from Find Items so if you would also find this useful then please request it as well to help get it prioritised for a future release.

This has a couple of optimisations

• It also checks the key of found items to avoid problems if you more than one item with the same name spread across different projects
• It stops searching as soon as it finds a match to help speed things up

[miguelalfayate]

Amazing. Thanks for the feedback.
I actually use the workaround in an easier context: to output a text file with the tasks for a given tag divided into its different projects.
It would all be much more easy if Omni would allow to extract project and tag info off of its Find Items action. I will send them a request to allow us to do so, as you well requested. I think it is a no brainer feature that should have been implemented from the start.