When an object is deleted through the UI, if that object has child objects and/or related entities (Time Entries, etc.) it should be an option to delete them as well. Ideally if no child or related objects exist, the delete would just occur; if they did a dialog would be displayed prompting the user to “Delete Related Objects?” (or language easier for users to understand, perhaps).
There is already a dialog when an object has some related entities (Time Entries, etc.) so ideally this dialog would be modified to list the types (and perhaps counts) of related objects with a checkbox to cascade delete one or more of them.
For extra points, the related object count should be a hyperlink to the list of related objects (but that's not in any way essential).
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You could likely do this with a customization, but I would be very nervous with this functionality in the system by default. I can see someone deleting a project and then accidentally deleting all users that are assigned to that project and creating a huge fire drill =).
Josh - two things about that.
First, it needs to be an option that the user deleting the object chooses at the itme and not an invisible aciton. You could default the choice to "Yes" but it's still a choice.
Second, there is a distinction in between Child Objects (that have parent objects) and Linked Object. Cascading a delete to LINKED objects is far ore problematic - but Clarizen already supports that. When you attempt to delete a Linked Object (where it allowed) you have the option to Unlink (correct) and to Delete (which deletes the linked object).
The specific use case for Child Objects here is Action Item under Tasks, or Milestones and tasks under Projects.
Yes, a customization can be built to do that (and we have) but since Clarizen has limits on the number of workflow rules and custom actions that you can build (and not everyone is a programmer) it would be far better to support it durectly. Especially since it is already supported for some Linked Objects, and when you delete a parent with children (like time entries on a task) you get a warning that the children exist - you just cant do anything about them.