We’re big fans of Asana here at Asana Training…obviously. But sometimes there are other teams or departments using other tools—like Jira, developed by Atlassian—and you want to sync your workflows with theirs without having to force everyone to use the same project management system.

It is common for software engineers, developers, and other technical specializations to gravitate towards Jira for its more regimented approach of issue tracking. But there is often conflict when the marketing and product teams need to collaborate with the engineering team because they tend to hate Jira and gravitate towards the better user experience of Asana.

Good news! It is definitely possible to sync Asana with Jira so that projects and tasks are automatically updated, and different teams can use whichever tool is preferred on a case-by-case basis.

The method for doing this is to use a 3rd-party tool made for integrating apps and services.

Options for Syncing Asana & Jira

Tools for simple one-way workflows

The first class of 3rd-party tools are what I call “one-way” automation tools. These services are designed to connect a wide variety of cloud apps and services.

Examples of one-way automation tools include:

• Zapier (the leader in this category)
• Automate.io
• Integromat

In terms of using this class of tool to integrate Asana and Jira, you can set up trigger-action workflows for things like:

• Create Jira issues from tagged Asana tasks
• Create Asana tasks from new Jira issues
• Update Jira issue when Asana task receives comment

Keep in mind you have to set up each one of these workflows one-by-one, and you may need to do it for every project you want integrated. So in general, this class of integration tools is best for simpler collaborations with clear handoffs between teams. For example, a trigger in Asana might create an issue in Jira that essentially transfers work responsibility from the marketing team to the development team, and little to no collaboration or syncing needs to occur after that.

Tools for ongoing two-way collaboration

The second class of 3rd-party tools isn’t limited to one-way trigger-action workflows; it keeps data in-sync constantly. So when one task in Asana has information added to the Description, it automatically updates the issue in Jira. And when the same task receives an updated classification in Jira, it immediately updates a Custom Field in Asana.

This tight integration is not really possible with the first class of tools. People sometimes think, “Oh, I’ll just sync that using Zapier,” not realizing it’s not designed to keep data in sync to the same degree as these second class of tools. It will either require too many hours of upkeep, or it will fall short of ever working properly.

Examples of true syncing tools include:

• Unito
• Tray.io (Enterprise-level)

Based on experience, hands-down the best solution for most organizations to sync Asana and Jira is Unito.

How to sync Asana & Jira using Unito

From the Unito console, you can connect Asana and Jira and create a Sync for each pair of projects you want to keep synchronized. Unito works with both cloud and on-premise versions of Jira.

Once a Sync is created, Unito will perform an initial synchronization, which will duplicate existing tasks from one app to the other, and vice-versa. Unito will then maintain the projects in sync, applying changes made from one side to the other. This includes:

• Closing tasks/issues
• Updating the title or description
• Updating assignees
• Adding tags or labels
• Attaching files
• Making comments
• Updating custom fields

To get started syncing Asana and Jira using Unito, follow these steps:

Step 1: Create an account with Unito and create your first “Sync”

Step 2: Configure Jira for Unito access

Before you can connect your JIRA account in Unito, JIRA itself must be configured to recognize the Unito app. ou will need to have administrator access to your JIRA account. Here’s the directions.

Step 3: Create “Sync User Accounts” in Asana and Jira (Optional)

This reduces confusion by showing actions and comments performed by Unito as being done by a “bot” rather than someone on your team. If you used your personal account to connect to Asana and Jira, for example, notifications would say you made a comment when it was really someone else.

Step 4: Customize your Sync

This will include actions like:

• Choose what projects you want to sync
• Apply filters to only sync certain types of tasks/issues
• Map users to each other if they’re using different email addresses in Asana and Jira
• Map workflows
• Map custom fields
• Map tags/labels

After that, you’re ready to walk away and let Unito keep syncing! 

The post Jira + Asana Integration: How-to & Options for Syncing first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Asana, Inc. recently changed their pricing structure for Premium Workspaces by counting external users (like contractors or clients) as part of the paid user count. Previously, some users were considered “guests” and did not count towards Premium member counts.

For Workspaces, the term “Guests” is no longer used, and instead they are called “Limited Access Members.” If your team uses a Premium Workspace (rather than an Organization) and invites many contractors or clients to collaborate, your pricing tier may have increased significantly.

This was a very reasonable move by Asana since it would have been easy for their customer base to call users “Guests” and not pay for them when they were in fact regular team members.

This pricing change does not affect Premium Organizations or any free tiers (since all users count towards the 15-member limit).

Organizations can now also invite “Limited Access Members” into projects which are internal users who have access to some projects, but not full visibility into a whole team. These users DO count towards the total paid user count unless they are using an external email domain (which is still considered a “guest”).

The post Asana changes “Guests” in Premium Workspaces, increasing paid user counts first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Prior to founding Asana Training, I led a nonprofit that frequently planned events for upwards of 1000 people. I quickly learned how fantastic Asana is for event planning, and it became an indispensable part of our workflow.

The key to planning a recurring event using Asana is to create a Project Template. I’ve helped clients in a variety of industries do this for events such as college graduations, investor pitches, industry conferences, and more. Asana handles each event type flawlessly.

Tips and ideas for planning an event with Asana

A project template lets you plan an event with just a few clicks rather than a few days of planning.

Use section headings to break up tasks chronologically

Although there are a bunch of ways you could use sections in events, one of my favorites is to use them chronologically, like “10 weeks out” or “March.” The idea here is NOT to replace due dates, but to make it easy to see what should have already been accomplished. This works great for weekly status meetings.

Once it gets close to the event, I like to get very specific with sections. Names like “Day before the event,” “Friday of the conference,” and “Day after the event” usually make sense as sections.

Set up Custom Fields

For events, number Custom Fields are great for data like “Cost” or “Budget.” This allows you to multi-select a group of tasks and immediately know the overall cost and budget for the selected tasks since number Custom Fields automatically sum their data.

I also like to use a dropdown Custom Field for department or category of the tasks. This way we can see what department is responsible for which tasks (like “IT” or “Operations”), or which tasks are related (like “registration” or “catering”). It also allows you to sort by department or pull specific search reports with that information (i.e. “Incomplete Tasks belonging to the IT department that are due in the next 7 days”).

Choose assignees and dates

In your event project, make sure every task has an assignee and a due date. This will make sure everyone knows who is responsible for what and the expectations about when work gets done.

Build packing lists

Asana’s “check-off” list structure makes it excellent for tracking inventory and packing lists. Make a complete list of what needs to be present for your event, and check it off as it gets loaded or mailed. This could be in a “Packing” section, or as subtasks in a “Packing” task.

Track registrations in a separate project

Create a registration list using a form like Wufoo, Jotform, Typeform, Gravity Forms, or an event system that integrates with Zapier like Eventbrite. As attendees pay or RSVP, create tasks with each attendee’s name as a task. Consider putting additional info, like contact info, amount paid, amount owed, and if the attendee has a special status like “VIP” or “Speaker” as Custom Fields.

Then when someone shows up at your event ready to register, you can take your lists on the go using phones or tablets thanks to Asana’s apps. Just check the person off and they’re all set!

Use a web form to bring attendee data into Asana so you can check people off as they register.

Establish dependencies in your event template

Dependencies copy over when you copy a template, so make sure your tasks like “Approve event brochure” are marked dependent on “Create event brochure” so it’s clear when work can begin for each teammate.

Manage vendors

Does your event feature vendors or exhibitors? Manage their communications, preferences, and details using Asana in either a section or a separate project. If you went with a separate project, you can use additional Custom Fields specific to vendors.

Continually improve the event template after each event

Your Asana templates are not meant to be created and left alone. You want to refine and fine-tune it until it captures all of the necessary work and the right timings.

Use other tools where appropriate

I love that Asana is flexible enough to work for so many types of projects and workflows. For events, there may be some applications that are better met with other systems. For example, Asana is probably not the best tool for scheduling, like the actual time frame for each part of the event. Use a calendar app or even a spreadsheet that allows times to re-calculate based on the duration of each event segment and its order.

Now you’re ready to plan an event like a pro! 

The post Event Planning with Asana first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Asana is a fantastic tool, but one area that could use improvement is with reporting. One tool that has stepped up to provide better visual dashboards is Screenful.

Screenful focuses on improving communication between all stakeholders in software development (especially using an Agile methodology), but it’s generic enough that it works for all sorts of teams that use a “Not Started, In Progress, Done” approach. Examples of customer use cases include tracking things like manufacturing, sales pipelines, marketing campaigns, house building, order processing, content production, and more.

It's pretty neat how this burnup chart shows best and worst case scenarios based on previous work velocity.

After connecting Asana and Screenful and choosing an Asana project, you’ll get a variety of pre-built, customizable dashboards that do the following (according to the product release notes):

• Track sprints and milestones with burndown and burnup charts
  • See how much work was planned vs. actually done over multiple sprints
  • Get a data-driven forecast for a completion of a project
  • See best and worst case scenarios based on historical velocity
• Communicate the status of your team to everyone around
  • Who’s working on what right now?
  • What has been recently completed?
  • Which tasks are due?
• See how work flows through your process—track metrics and spot bottlenecks
  • How quickly tasks are resolved after work is started?
  • What is the average cycle time per workflow state or per task type?
  • How is time distributed between different activities?

One of my favorite parts of Screenful is a TV mode. Never underestimate the impression a cool TV dashboard can make on a client passing through!

Who cares what this chart means—boy does it look sweet on a 65-inch TV! DATA!!!

Screenful works with other tools as well like Trello, Jira, and GitHub. Screenful starts at $29/month with a 50% discount for companies with less than 10 employees.

The post Meet Screenful, Asana’s dashboards on steroids first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

A common question we field in our workshops is, “How often do I need to check Asana?” It’s a little tricky to handle since different types of roles have different requirements about notifications (i.e. administrative assistant vs. maintenance worker). But our best response is, “How often do you check your email? Probably that much.” That’s because Asana should become the de facto place to see new tasks and work communication.

But there is often still confusion around when to use Asana rather than some of the other tools you may be using, like email, Slack, phone calls, meetings, etc. What if you need an immediate answer? Does that change anything?

We suggest you create an Asana conventions (or policies) document to set expectations for your team. And part of that document should outline communications protocol for your team.

Example communication protocol

Timing

Do you need an immediate response? Go to their office if possible, or call them and follow up with Slack if no answer.

Do you need a response within one hour? Use Slack.

Do you need a response within a day? Use Asana.

Content

Does it relate to a specific task? Use an Asana comment.

Does it relate to a specific project but not a task? Use an Asana project conversation.

Are you sharing time-wasting GIFs? Use Slack.

Is it a 5-year-old email forward chain? Stop, for the love of all that is holy!

Is it a non-work company announcement? Use the all-staff email group.

By clearly letting your team know what is expected (like that everyone should be checking Asana at least twice daily), you’ll experience smoother adoption of Asana and more unity. What are some of the expectations (written or unwritten) at your place of work?

The post Set communication expectations for your team first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

One commonly requested feature by project managers for Asana is a Gantt chart view for projects. As we predicted, Asana just released a new view for this called Timeline. Timeline is a Premium-only feature as it requires Start Dates (which is also a Premium feature).

The purpose of the Timeline is to visualize how work is progressing and make adjustments as needed. It also makes dependencies much more apparent so you can focus on the critical path of a project. Gantt charts were previously only possible via a 3rd-party tool called Instagantt.

Asana's new Timeline view is a Gantt chart to aid your project planning. Source: Asana Guide.

The Timeline view is automatically accessible on every project in the project toolbar (where “Conversations” or “Calendar” is located). Tasks with due dates appear in the Timeline, and by dragging the beginning or ending of a task, you can set both a “Start Date” and a “Due Date.” Like in the Calendar view, you can click on a date to create a new task.

Dependencies show as gray lines, as seen in the image above. If there is a conflict with the due dates of dependencies, the gray line will turn red indicating a problem in the project plan.

One of the things I really like is the area for tasks with no due dates (which obviously can’t show on a timeline). The tasks with no due dates will appear at the bottom of the Timeline in the Unscheduled Tasks section. You can drag these up into the timeline to add them into your project plan.

Timeline also allows you to drag a box to select multiple tasks at once, and then drag the selected tasks to a new part of the timeline. This allows you to shift all the tasks at once. This would be helpful if you need to delay a project, for example, and need to postpone many of the tasks’ due dates all at once. Bonus points for a future update would be being able to respect weekends as you shift a timeline.

By sharing the URL of the Timeline, you can share it with anyone in your Asana workspace/organization who has access to that project.

Areas for improvement in Asana’s Timeline

The Timeline view is still new, so hopefully Asana can address some of the following current shortcomings.

Can’t set dependencies from Timeline view

There isn’t a way to set dependencies between tasks in the Timeline view.

Seeing and establishing dependencies visually in a Gantt chart is one of the most critical uses of Gantt charts. It shouldn’t be so complicated to add dependencies.

This is a big disappointment. It should be easy to establish dependencies from tasks by clicking on one task and then clicking on another. Instagantt had already figured out how to do this perfectly. Hopefully Asana notices. It’s far too time consuming to click on each task, click “Mark as Dependent on…”, search for a task, and then select it.

No dividing of tasks into sections

Again, Instagantt provided a nice way to show or collapse tasks in the Gantt chart based on the Asana section to which they belonged. For example, if a marketing department is setting up a project to create a video, it might make sense to divide the work into “Pre-Production,” “Production,” and “Post-Production” sections. In the Timeline, there is no way to collapse the sections to focus only on certain parts of the project or provide an overview of the project (i.e. “Pre-Production will last from June 1 until June 17”)

No subtasks

If your workflows rely on subtasks a lot, you might run into issues as subtasks do not show in the Timeline (like the Calendar view). There are many reasons why subtasks are tricky and we suggest not using them for the bulk of your work, as we outlined in one of the most popular posts in the Asana community. But not showing Subtasks in the Timeline is another strike against them.

No printing format

I think it’s common to want to print a timeline, bring it to a meeting, and then scribble on it before making modifications to the plan. There isn’t a way to export the Timeline into a printed or PDF format.

No “project baseline” capability

A really neat part of Instagantt is the ability to create project baselines and then overlay it on the current timeline to compare the original plan to what is actually happening. This isn’t possible in Asana’s Timeline.

No Timeline view for My Tasks or Search Reports

It would be great to see the Timeline view from a user’s My Tasks as well. This would help with some aspects of resource planning. Currently, you can only view Timeline in a project.

Likewise, you cannot create a Timeline for multiple projects—or a certain person within a project—as there is no Timeline view for Search Reports.

Overall, this is an exciting development and it shows Asana’s continued commitment to product excellence. Are you excited for Timeline? Is there anything else you’d like to see with this tool?

The post Asana releases new Timeline view (i.e. Gantt charts) first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Justin Rosenstein, an Asana co-founder, recently offered a rare look at Asana’s vision for their future product roadmap. The video talked about innovation beyond the new Timeline, focusing on some new features based on machine learning that are only possible with today’s technology.

The new UI demo seems like it’s still potentially years away, but offers some pretty neat ideas and improvements.

Focus mode

Mark Twain once said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning.” Asana demonstrated a new UI that helps users focus on the most important thing that needs to be done each day, with that idea that people should tackle that first to make sure progress is being made daily towards the team’s goals. It seems like Asana plans to create a native Asana app that ties into other applications on your computer (or device), so it can even open recommended apps more quickly.

The new Asana helps each team member focus on what's most important. Source: YouTube.

Resource planning

Today, to accomplish resource planning typically requires a specialized tool that’s separate from the project planning tool, that’s separate from each team member’s individual task list. Asana is aiming to combine all of these and make it easier to notice when someone is overloaded or has extra capacity.

Of all the concepts presented in the video, this seems most likely to happen in the next 18 months since it is so similar to Timeline. The problem with any resource planning tool is each task actually has to receive an estimate of how long the task is going to take. This is time consuming and takes a significant commitment. It’s doubtful Asana is going to be able to “figure out” how long each task takes any time soon.

Asana's new resource planner should eliminate the need for additional tools. Source: YouTube.

Automatic project planning

Asana claims it will be able to “use algorithms to intelligently allocate [tasks] to everyone on the team.” This was demonstrated by hitting a “Schedule Automatically” button that immediately assigned tasks based on individuals’ bandwidth and project timing. This could eventually also factor in details like vacation schedules or employee skill.

This is probably the area that I’m most skeptical of, but hopefully their engineering chops can match their talk.

Can Asana successfully automate project planning? We'll see. Source: YouTube.

Automatic meeting scheduler

The process of finding meeting times agreeable to groups of people is a pain. Asana hopes to connect to employee’s calendars so that meetings can be automatically scheduled optimally with one click. It will even automatically attach a meeting transcript to the task at hand at the conclusion of the meeting.

Company-wide dashboard

Asana’s Dashboard is currently a way to pick and choose the most important projects to show in one snapshot, but a valid criticism of Asana is the difficulty in rolling up multiple teams into higher level dashboards.

A new interface was demoed that allows greater visibility into how projects, teams, and even divisions support overall objectives. It also seems to indicate that Projects will begin having more metadata tagged to them, like Custom Fields (which is currently only for Tasks). By incorporating project planning portfolio software within Asana, it will be possible to zoom in from the company mission all the way down to individual tasks. (And on the flip side, allow individual contributors to understand how their roles supports broader goals.) Very cool.

Better executive reporting in Asana seems to be a focus in the future. Source: YouTube.

OKR reporting

The new interface supports the OKR methodology (Objectives & Key Results) used by many tech companies out of the box. It allows easy insight into the status of metrics and key results, and links to key people and relevant timelines. This could provide amazing clarity to companies that don’t regularly have a strategic planning cycle.

OKRs can unite each team towards common goals, and Asana wants to help. Source: YouTube.

This glimpse of Asana’s future is super exciting! What are you most pumped for?

The post Asana shares future product roadmap: Automatic project scheduling, resource planning, OKR tracking first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Why use Slack & Asana together?

Slack is a widely-used communication platform boasting around 8 million daily active users. Essentially, it’s texting for business. For those with corporate backgrounds, it’s a sexier and more useful Yammer.

Slack allows you to group company conversations into threads (marked by a hashtag), and its ability to integrate with many different web services allow it to serve as a central notifications hub.

Asana began adding communication features in May 2015, so why would a business want to use both Slack and Asana?

Slack is definitely not an Asana replacement. Slack is a communication tool, not a task management tool. Asana is much more robust in terms of tracking work, assigning tasks, and creating reports. Slack doesn’t have these tools natively, and 3rd-party Slack project management integrations pale in comparison to Asana. But Slack recognized this and made it possible to turn messages into actions with a new Action menu integrating with 3rd-party tools.

As a best practice, it is definitely recommended to keep questions and comments related to a task within Asana. By marrying this information to the task with task comments, you keep all the relevant context in one place. This is super helpful if reassigning a task or looking back at a completed task in the future.

However, there are a few reasons why some businesses love Slack and want to use it in conjunction with Asana:

1. Slack integrates with many apps. Slack has a robust API that allows other applications to tie into it easily. For example, I use Slack as a hub for notifications from several different places: my tasks (Asana), my appointments (Calendly), payments (Stripe), and general team conversations. And by using an automation platform like Zapier or IFTTT, the number of possible integrations explodes. It’s difficult to get all that information into Asana in a useful way.
2. Slack offers a more focused platform for communicating. Slack does one thing, and it does it well. The native mobile and desktop apps allow you to quickly communicate without getting bogged down. Teams that spend a lot of time texting or using an instant messenger are prime candidates for Slack.
3. Slack is fun. Slack encourages a humorous and fun experience, like supporting GIF images in responses. You’d be surprised how many teams love it purely for this reason!

What does the Slack & Asana integration do?

Slack and Asana offer an integration (new and improved in May 2018) for organizations that use both services. There are two primary benefits to setting this up:

First, you can quickly create and assign Asana tasks within Slack. As you’re conversing and decide you should create a new task, you don’t need to leave Slack and open up Asana. Instead, you can type a simple “/asana create” command to create the task, add it to a project, and assign it to a teammate.

Second, you can edit existing Asana tasks. When pasting an Asana URL link, you have the ability to do the following:

• Mark task complete
• Like the task
• Change the assignee
• Change the due date
• Add task to a specific project.

Third, you can receive personal notifications for tasks assigned to you in Asana. This is helpful for teams who already use Slack a lot and prefer to receive notifications in Slack instead of their email or Asana inboxes. These personal notifications include:

• A task is assigned or unassigned from you
• A task is completed
• A due date changes
• All dependencies are completed so you can start a task
• A dependency is uncompleted
• A dependency due date is changed
• You are added as a follower to a task
• A new comment is added to a task you follow

Fourth, you can link an Asana project  to a Slack channel for notifications. Using “/slack link”, you can let your team receive their project updates in Slack when:

• Tasks are added to the project
• Tasks are completed in the project
• The due date is changed on a task in the project
• The assignee is changed on a task in the project

I was disappointed to see that Asana project status updates and project conversations were not listed as data that syncs after linking a project between Slack and Asana. In my opinion, that’s what would have been most helpful.

How to configure the Slack & Asana integration

1. From within Slack, install the Asana integration for your Slack team. You must have the admin privileges necessary to do this. If you’re brand new to Slack, you should sign up and create a team first. NOTE: If you have the original Asana-Slack integration installed from prior to May 2018, you should deauthorize it in Asana’s “Apps” tab in “My Profile Settings.”
2. Authenticate with your Asana organization. If you ever want to deauthorize, visit the “Apps” tab on the “My Profile Settings” in Asana.
3. Grant permissions. Grant access to the Asana app for “All public channels.” If you want to add to any other channels or direct messages, just send a message with /asana in that channel/DM and respond to the prompt(s).

4. Onboard your team. According to Asana’s documentation: “The fastest way to onboard your team is to paste a link to an Asana task in Slack. Ask your teammates to click the “More actions…” drop down menu and select “Like this task.” By interacting with the task, they’ll receive the re-authorization message. Once they re-authorize, the new Asana for Slack will replace the old version.”

How to create & assign Asana tasks within Slack

As you’re messaging back and forth with teammates in Slack, you may reach a conclusion together or realize you need to add a task. Adding the task within Slack so that it shows up in Asana is easy. Just type the following and hit enter:

/asana create

A dialogue box will pop up where you can add all the task information.

Fill out the dialogue box to create a new Asana Task.

How do you use Slack and Asana together? What benefits have you experienced in using Slack in addition to Asana?

The post How to integrate Slack & Asana first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

With dependencies in Asana, you can mark a task as unable to start until another task is completed. After a task is “Marked as Dependent On…”, it shows a shaded, yellow box with the details about the task that must be completed first. Once the predecessor task is completed, it triggers a special notification in the Asana Inbox that the successor task can then be started. (It also notifies you if the date changes on the predecessor task.)

The yellow box lets you know you can't start a task until another task is completed.

Dependencies are helpful when planning out projects, especially when using templates that map out the final tasks in a workflow that can’t be started yet. But the problem has been that setting up dependencies through the task details pane is time-consuming. You have to click multiple times in the task action menu and type the name of the task you’re waiting on. This made it challenging to use in day-to-day work.

Asana recently upgraded the Timeline view to allow you to add dependencies with a simple drag-and-drop interface. This is now the best way to add dependencies in Asana.

Use the drag-and-drop interface to set dependencies in Asana.

How to set dependencies in Asana’s Timeline

If your project lends itself to a waterfall approach (logical, cascading steps), you can easily schedule your project in the Timeline and set due dates (due dates are very important in Asana). From here you can hover over a task, grab the connector icon, and drag it onto another task to set the dependency. What used to sometimes take 10–15 seconds or more now takes less than a second. Nice!

It gets trickier when projects lack due dates or contain subtasks

Let’s say you have a bunch of tasks and subtasks in a project that you want to set up dependencies for, but you’re not ready to plan all dates yet. Here’s a workaround we developed:

1. Create a new temporary project. Let’s call it “TEMP.”
2. Create a search report for all tasks in the original project. This report will include subtasks by default.

3. Multi-select up to 50 tasks at a time and do two things:
   • Add to “TEMP” project with the “Tab + P” keyboard shortcut. Be careful not to replace the project, but to actually add it so they are in multiple projects simultaneously.
   • Give it a random due date. Today is fine. The due date will make them appear on a Timeline.

4. Repeat until all tasks and subtasks have been added to “TEMP” and given the same random due date.
5. Navigate to the Timeline view of the TEMP project. You’ll now see all tasks (and subtasks) vertically lined up in the Timeline.

6. Click and drag to set up all your dependencies. They should mostly be in order but I’ve noticed it’s not always exact.

7. When you’re finished, just delete the temporary project. This won’t affect the tasks or subtasks since they are still in the other project.

This workaround will enable you to take advantage of the drag-and-drop interface which saves a lot of time when trying to set up dependencies for 25+ Asana tasks.

The post The best way to set up dependencies in Asana first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Most people can get all the information they need to do their work directly within Asana, but from our consulting experience we’ve noticed that there is often a need to report to people who aren’t using Asana. This might be an executive team, another department, or an offsite meeting where paper handouts are helpful.

Asana’s reporting and exporting features are unfortunately very basic.

1. You can export data into a CSV file, but it’s formatted poorly and the tasks (and subtasks) don’t appear in any discernible order. Or…
2. You can print a list view or save it as a PDF, but it’s not customizable at all so you’re forced to print subtasks and task descriptions that you’d rather not.

Despite continuous grumbling in the Asana community, improving Asana’s reporting capabilities does not seem to be a priority for Asana, Inc. The ability to create nice-looking reports has been noticeably absent for years, which is a bit surprising for such a cutting-edge project management solution.

However, an ambitious developer has created Asana2Go, a Chrome extension that makes it possible to create perfectly formatted, customizable reports in a few clicks. It’s currently free while in beta.

To create the reports, all you need to do is multi-select the tasks and sections you want to turn into a report/PDF. This means you can skip some tasks within a project if you want. It works for My Tasks, Projects, and even Search Reports.

In short, Asana2Go allows you to reap all the benefits of Asana’s powerful task management but not get stuck when needing to share the data with outsiders.

Here’s an example of a customized report I designed using Sections, Tasks, Due Dates, Assignee, and a Custom Field called “Status.”

With some basic HTML and CSS styling, you can create beautiful reports with Asana data.

Pretty slick, right? Asana2Go has a number of reports built-in, like if you want to include Descriptions or Subtasks—or export directly to CSV in a more organized format than how Asana does natively.

But what makes the extension really shine is the ability to customize the reports using Markdown as well as HTML and the full Handlebars template language using custom helpers. Although using the out-of-the-box reports is easy, making custom reports is a bit technical so you may need to get assistance to build a report that suits your needs. Fortunately, that is a one-time process and it’s easy to share report templates with others.

Asana2Go has powerful capabilities, but might be a little overwhelming to those without technical backgrounds.

Creating an Asana report with Asana2Go

1. Install the Chrome extension. You’ll need to use the Chrome browser in order to use Chrome extensions.
2. Highlight the tasks you want in the report.
3. Select the Asana2Go icon in the Chrome toolbar.
4. Select which report template you want to use and select either “View + Copy” or “View + Print.”

Highlight tasks and select the Asana2Go icon in the toolbar to get started.

Privacy

For those concerned about the security and privacy of your Asana data, I spoke to the developer and he stated, “No data is stored. The only server in use is the Chrome extension server. The JavaScript processes the data but doesn’t save anything other than the formats themselves (name, description, CSS, markup).” (Asana Training has not confirmed this; it’s for your information only and you should always be cautious how you allow apps to connect to your Asana account.)

What do you think of Asana2Go? Is there anything else you wish it could do?

The post Finally, create nice-looking reports for Asana with the Asana2Go Chrome extension first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Most people can get all the information they need to do their work directly within Asana, but from our consulting experience we’ve noticed that there is often a need to report to people who aren’t using Asana. This might be an executive team, another department, or an offsite meeting where paper handouts are helpful.

Asana’s reporting and exporting features are unfortunately very basic.

1. You can export data into a CSV file by project, but it’s formatted poorly and the tasks (and subtasks) don’t appear in any discernible order. Or…
2. You can print a list view or save it as a PDF, but it’s not customizable at all so you’re forced to print subtasks and task descriptions that you’d rather not.

Despite continuous grumbling in the Asana community, improving Asana’s exporting capabilities does not seem to be a priority for Asana, Inc. But one product that is targeting this issue is Bridge24.

Bridge24 provides enhanced reporting and exporting capabilities for Asana, as well as a few other tools like Trello and Basecamp. It provides a separate interface that—while not as pretty as Asana—allows more functionality around building custom filters for sorting, viewing, and combining your projects in specific ways.

Some of the specific features we thought were noteworthy include:

• View list projects as boards in Bridge24. Asana does not allow you to switch between a board and list view, but Bridge24 turns section headings into columns.
• Export into CSV or Excel files. Asana allows you export projects to CSV but it’s a bit of jumbled mess. Bridge24 does a better job allowing you to pick what data you want to export from tasks (i.e. which custom fields) in a simple, drag-and-drop type interface. You can also combine multiple project datasets.
• Visualize Asana data in interactive charts. Everybody loves colorful charts, right?
• Automatic report generation. Although the reporting is limited to a few predefined reports right now, they plan to add the ability to customize reports soon.

Visualize your Asana data in charts, such as breaking down assignee or tasks completed by week. Source: Bridge24.com.

Search and sort tasks across multiple projects easier with Bridge24. Source: Bridge24.com.

Print reports based on filtered tasks. Source: Bridge24.com.

Bridge24 offers a free trial that never expires. According to their website, the free trial is limited in certain ways including 50 tasks per export, limited data history, inability to use custom fields, and only 3 custom filters can be saved. But hey, it’s free so try it out. Bridge24 costs around $5 – 8 per month when purchased annually.

What do you think of Bridge24? Is there anything else you wish it could do?

The post Export Asana data just the way you want with Bridge24 first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Email is a stalwart of the office, and it’s not going away any time soon. For organizations using Microsoft Office 365®, you can install a free app called Asana for Outlook to turn emails into trackable tasks.

Without having to leave Outlook, you can now perform two actions in Asana:

1. Create a new task in Asana with an assignee, project, due date, and description
2. Add the content of an email as a task comment in Asana

By selecting the Asana icon in Outlook, you can create new tasks or search for an existing task to add the email message as a task comment. Source: Asana Blog.

Although users have long been able create tasks in Asana directly from their email (by forwarding to x@mail.asana.com from their email address associated with their Asana account), this simplifies the process and makes it possible to add a project and due date.

There has already been a more powerful plugin for Outlook for Windows called Sendana that also allows you to do things like create Asana project conversations from Outlook. (You can get a free license of Sendana when purchasing the Asana Training Masterclass). But the official Asana for Outlook plugin brings cross-platform access and is available in the browser for Office 365, and it also supports Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016 for Mac.

Asana for Outlook helps you transform passive emails into actionable tasks. You can install it from the Microsoft AppSource.

Although the new add-in is helpful, there are still significant limitations as opposed to just creating the task directly in Asana.

For example, with Outlook for Asana you cannot:

• Add a task to multiple projects
• Add Tags or Custom Field data
• Add followers
• Attach other relevant files

So keep in mind that you will often still need to edit the file within Asana to add all the information you need. Because of this, we recommend you get in the habit of creating tasks directly in Asana.

What do you think of Asana for Outlook? Is there anything else you wish it could do?

The post Asana for Outlook add-in creates Asana tasks directly from Office 365 first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

In case you haven’t heard, Asana sent an email to a limited number of users and posted a nonchalant message on the Asana Forums that they plan to remove the Dashboard feature for all users on December 1, 2018. They have also alluded to a replacement feature called Portfolios that will debut around the same time.

Dashboards were Asana’s attempt to provide a high-level overview of various projects with the ability for team members to update project statuses and add notes. Some teams have integrated Dashboards tightly into their workflows, but most teams do not seem to have found the current implementation helpful and thus aren’t using them. Some reasons for this are there is no way to roll up projects together for reporting, add and search by project metadata (like Custom Fields), or natively track projects with any type of system like OKRs.

This in-app popup lets users know that dashboards are going away soon.

In terms of functionality, this change is a good thing. Most teams don’t use Dashboards because the information they provide requires manual updating regularly, and I think most people find the current Google Spreadsheet integration has little to no value in terms of what information is actually useful for project reporting.

The new portfolio solution will be so much better. But the problem I see, similar to the last time prices were increased, is how this change is being rolled out.

There are secrets Asana, Inc. isn’t telling you

A great leadership lesson I learned is: COMMUNICATION + TIME = UNITED CHANGE. In this case, there has been both poor communication and not enough time to process this change.

Giving users less than 2 months to change what COULD be a major shift for them is an enormous headache. Add on top of that the fact Asana has insufficiently communicated the change (I didn’t receive an email, and the majority of users are not scanning the forums) and it feels like Asana, Inc. is hiding something.

And based on what I’ve read in the Asana forums, there is something important being hidden that wasn’t communicated in any of Asana’s announcements so far.

Asana is taking away what was a core feature people paid for—and perhaps a selling point for using Asana in the first place—with no replacement unless you switch to Enterprise and pay 2x what you’re currently paying for Asana.

The replacement for Dashboards, called Portfolios, is planned to only be available for the Enterprise tier ($20+ per user). I think a lot people are going to feel very frustrated by this. Asana has HUGE switching costs. When someone chooses to run their team or their whole company on Asana, they’re doing it by putting trust in the product and the company backing it. To have features suddenly yanked out from under them and told to pay double the price (a $6,000 difference for a 50-person company!), that breaks the trust.

Did the switch from Dashboards to Portfolios need to happen? Yes, they are creating a much better solution. But why punish and frustrate existing customers?

It seems like better solutions are:

1. Give portfolios to all Premium customers
2. Give a portion of portfolio features that at least replace the functionality of dashboards (my recommendation is to hide Portfolio Custom Fields behind the Enterprise paywall since users are already used to having to pay extra for Custom Field functionality)
3. Grandfather existing users into portfolios and have all new users pay for it, like what Asana, Inc. did previously with Advanced Search

I hope all Asana users get to hear a better announcement about this with the details people actually need to plan. They deserve to know more than, “We’re taking away Dashboards and replacing it with something better,” because that’s only a partial truth. Asana is claiming a new Homescreen can replace Dashboards, but this is not a replacement at all. All the Homescreen does is how recent and favorite projects, nothing related to project progress.

Does this affect you? Speak up!

The good news is that if this rubs you the wrong way, Asana has already shown they will listen to user feedback. This was demonstrated with how they handled feedback from their last price increase.

I encourage everyone to share your feedback and trust they will do the right thing for their customers. Leave a comment below, and copy and paste it as well to the Asana forum topic about this.

The post Asana eliminating Dashboards soon—and maybe users’ trust first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

One of the best ways to speed up your workflows in Asana is to learn some of the many built-in keyboard shortcuts. Some of my favorite Asana keyboard shortcuts include:

• Tab + Backspace = Delete selected task
• Tab + M = Assign task to me
• Tab + Y, Tab + U, Tab + L = Move task in My Tasks to Today, Upcoming, or Later

You can always access the full list of keyboard shortcuts by clicking on the Help button in the top right corner and selecting “Keyboard shortcuts.” This provides a pop up of every single keyboard shortcut.

All keyboard shortcuts are located in the help menu.

But our friends at Unito put together some handy guides of all the Asana keyboard shortcuts overlaid on a keyboard. Save or print a copy as a reference when you’re ready to up your Asana game!

Asana keyboard shortcuts for macOS

Source: Unito.io

Asana keyboard shortcuts for Windows

Source: Unito.io

The post Free cheatsheets for Asana keyboard shortcuts first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Your office may have workflows where they need to share simple tables of information. Emailing spreadsheets back and forth takes work tracking away from Asana which introduces more complexity, so that should be avoided. So what are the options to share tables in Asana?

Asana does not have native table functionality. You can’t paste HTML tables, and there is no built-in table editor the way something like Airtable or Smartsheets allows.

Here’s a few methods you might want to consider depending on your needs:

Option 1: Create Excel spreadsheet and attach to Asana

With this method, you can go ahead and just create your table in Excel (or Word or any other program) and upload it by dragging it onto the task details pane, or by using the attachments icon. This method is best if you have a lot of data to display, or you need plenty of data editing and manipulation in order to discuss it.

Drag and drop files onto a task to automatically upload it.

Option 2: Take a screenshot and attach that image to a task

One of the easiest things to do is just take a screenshot of your table. This method is best if you can easily capture all the data. The disadvantage is you can’t edit/sort anything, or search the contents of the table within Asana. You can view the screenshot in the task details pane as a thumbnail, or click it to open up a full size image.

Upload a screenshot to give everyone a quick glance at a table.

Option 3: Convert data to plain text & paste in Asana task description

If you want the ability to view and edit data directly in Asana, you can convert the table to text. This option takes another 30 seconds, but has the advantages of using Asana natively and allowing Asana to search the contents of the table.

Tables Generator can convert tables into plain text for easy copying and pasting.

Step 1: Copy table

You can copy a table in Excel, Word, or even an HTML table. Just highlight the cells and copy.

Step 2: Use the online tool Tables Generator to convert table to plain text

Head to Tables Generator, a free online tool. Although you can build the table manually there, it’s much easier to select “File > Paste Table” and paste the table you copied from Step 1.

Step 3: Generate the table and copy the contents

Click the “Generate” button and then the “Copy to Clipboard” button.

Step 4: Paste in Asana task description

Paste the contents of your text table in the description field. Chances are, things won’t look quite lined up. The issue is with how the font is displayed. We need it to display it monospaced, or “fixed-width.”

• On a Mac: Highlight the table (click in the description and press “⌘ + A” to highlight all). Then press “Shift + ⌘ + M” to make the table monospaced.
• On Windows: Highlight the table (click in the description and press “Ctrl + A” to highlight all). Then press “Ctrl + Shift + M” to make the table monospaced.

This doesn't look quite right. You need to make the text monospaced in Asana using the keyboard shortcut.

That looks better! All done!

The post Creating & sharing tables in Asana first appeared on Asana Training. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Updated December 2018 after the introduction of the Business tier
Asana’s pricing structure has changed several times since it was founded in 2008. They have always offered a very generous free version that many small businesses and nonprofits embraced. Originally, they allowed 20 free users with unlimited projects. Virtually all the features (except for a few privacy settings) were included, and they targeted larger businesses who needed 20+ seats as their first paying customers.

Today, Asana still offers a wonderful free project management solution up to 15 people. Many of their most recent new features (Portfolios, Custom Fields, Dependencies) are reserved for their paying customers.

There are now 4 tiers of Asana: Basic, Premium, Business, and Enterprise. You can always upgrade and downgrade as needed.

Asana Basic (Free version)

Price

$0. Woo hoo!

Users

15 people max. Guests & Limited Access Members (those without a company email) count as part of the 15.

Features

• Unlimited projects and tracking (including Boards project layout)
• No Portfolios
• No Advanced Search Reports (if you created your Asana organization before they limited this feature to Premium organizations, this feature is grandfathered in)
• No Custom Fields
• No Dependencies
• No Timeline or Start Dates
• Limited privacy controls (projects are either public or private to one person)
• Unlimited app integrations
• Basic support (I find the basic level of support is still excellent)
• Limited admin controls (can’t even remove someone who leaves your organization without logging in as that person)

Asana Premium

Price

Purchase in sets of 5 seats. Up to March 2017, the cost started at $5/month per person and increased with your company size up to $10/month. There was also an annual discount, so this meant the entry point to start using Asana Premium was $250.20 per year (for 5 seats).

After several years of no price increases, Asana added a small price bump. Currently, Asana Premium starts at $6.25/month per user for teams of 15 and under, and $9.99/month for teams over 15 people (when billed annually). If you prefer to pay month to month, the cost is $7.50/month per user for teams of 15 and under, and $11.99/month for teams over 15 people. This means the absolute lowest cost to start using Asana is $375.00 a year (for 5 seats).

I have never seen a sale, coupon, or discount code for Asana (like on Black Friday or something) that is open to the public, but there are exclusive discounts for students and nonprofits.

This is an excellent value for a highly supported, user-friendly task management platform. For a frame of reference, consider the cost for a team of 10 people in Asana compared to some of the other leading project management tools:

Monthly Price for 10 users when paid annually

So not only is Asana a phenomenal project management solution, but it’s also one of the most affordable.

Users

Unlimited, but you must purchase in blocks of 5 users. Organizations can add unlimited guests (those without a company email), but the equivalent “Limited Access Members” now count as paid users for Premium Workspaces.

Features

• Unlimited projects and tracking (including Boards project view)
• No Portfolios
• Timeline project view with Start Dates (i.e. Gantt charts)
• Advanced search reports
• Custom Templates (kind of a useless feature currently)
• Robust privacy controls (e.g. add projects and tasks accessible by a subset of people, or create hidden teams)
• Unlimited app integrations
• Premium support (nice to have, but like I said I think their free support is excellent for most needs)
• Admin controls (essential for companies with turnover as you can deprovision employees and reassign their tasks quickly)
• SSO (Single Sign-On)
• Access to additional features like Custom Fields and Dependencies (“Mark as waiting on…”)

Asana Business

Asana introduced a new tier into their pricing in November 2018. This was met with quite a bit of controversy as they removed features from the Premium plan in order to charge more for them in Business. This plan aims to give managers and executives better tools for Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and resource management.

Price

The cost is $19.99/month per user when paid annually, or $23.99 when paid monthly. This applies to every user in the Asana organization, regardless if they will use the extra features like Portfolios. There are reports of customers getting up to a 20% discount on the first year by contacting Asana’s sales team.

Users

Unlimited, but you must purchase in blocks of 5 users. Organizations can add unlimited guests (those without a company email), but the equivalent “Limited Access Members” now count as paid users for Premium Workspaces.

Features

In addition to the features of Asana Premium, Business includes:

• Portfolios, Asana’s built-in dashboard system
• Workload (coming soon in early-to-mid 2019), a resource management solution
• Forms, a simple way for non-Asana users to create tasks in a project (can be done better with Premium and a 3rd-party tool called Zapier)
• Proofing, or annotations on PNG images that automatically create subtasks
• Assistance from a Customer Success Manager for transitioning to Asana

Asana Enterprise

The final tier is called Enterprise. This tier is designed for large organizations and in exchange for a higher cost, boasts more security and service features.

Price

There is no public pricing listed for Enterprise, as each contract is negotiated separately on factors like the number of users. However, our feeling is that Enterprise pricing has increased to the neighborhood of $30/user/month.

Users

Unlimited, but you must purchase in blocks of 5 users. You can add unlimited guests (those without a company email).

Features

In addition to the features of Asana Premium & Business, Enterprise includes:

• The most advanced admin controls, like service accounts and SAML
• Full access to all the data that has ever been put into your organization’s Asana account and ability to export into a JSON file
• Block teammates from integrating your organization’s Asana account with software or apps that you do not allow
• Cross-regional data backups
• Custom branding

What’s best for me? Asana Basic vs. Premium vs. Business

If you have more than 15 people in your organization, you will need to purchase Asana Premium or Business. Likewise, if you have security requirements or deal with normal employee turnover, I think you should choose Asana Premium (and maybe even Enterprise depending on security concerns).

If you’re less than 15 people and those don’t apply, however, the decision is a little more complicated. The free version of Asana still works wonderfully for smaller teams. You can track all your work, and Asana does an excellent job of providing customer support for technical issues and questions. Unless you deal with a lot of confidential information that you don’t want certain employees to access, the limited privacy controls work fine.

It really comes down to your budget and the value of the extra features for your context. Keep in mind that Asana didn’t have custom fields, dependencies, or dashboards for years—and it was still a phenomenal tool. Dashboards are a great way to eliminate status meetings and provide real-time insight for managers. Custom fields and dependencies are still in their infancy, so I think we’re yet to see the full utility for those features (like when Asana develops APIs to integrate 3rd-party tools with those features). If your free organization is not grandfathered in to use advanced search reports, that is a tough feature to lack.

We do not feel the Business Plan offers enough value at this point to double the price of your Asana subscription. We can help you design a dashboard view with Asana Premium that accomplishes what you need with the granularity you want.

What’s even more important than these features is making sure your teams are trained in how to use Asana, and that you’re adhering to best practices in project management. Project Management Pros offers a range of services and online courses to help you deploy and optimize Asana. We’ve worked with groups from Fortune 500 companies to universities to small marketing teams. Learn more and contact us to see how we can help.

To calculate the exact price of Asana Premium for your organization, visit your upgrade page.

The post Asana pricing: How much does Asana cost? first appeared on Project Management Pros™. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Asana is a fantastic tool, but one area where some teams (especially engineering teams) get frustrated is the very limited built-in reporting. Asana’s reporting and exporting features are unfortunately very basic.

1. You can export data into a CSV file by project, but it’s formatted poorly and the tasks (and subtasks) don’t appear in any discernible order. Or…
2. You can print a list view or save it as a PDF, but it’s not customizable at all so you’re forced to print subtasks and task descriptions that you’d rather not.

We recently had the chance to talk with Tom Benner, the founder of Velocity. Velocity helps teams create custom dashboards and reports for Asana in a slick, easy-to-use interface. Velocity states some of their notable customers include Dropbox, Cisco, and Spotify.

Some of the specific features of Velocity we thought were noteworthy include:

• Visualize Asana data in customizable charts. There is a lot of flexibility in how you want to display data.
• Compute results based on numerical Custom Fields. You can find the sum, average, minimum, or maximum values. For example, see how many story points you completed in a week, or the average time to complete a type of task.
• TV dashboard view. Create a live dashboard to display in your office to keep people on track.
• Connect your Asana data to Power BI, Google Sheets, or other powerful data tools. With this, the sky is the limit for how you can process your data.
• It’s fast. It processes large projects quickly, something other tools can struggle with.

You can use dozens of preset reports or create your own. Source: getvelocity.co.

Choose from many grouping and filtering options to create the exact chart you want. Source: getvelocity.co.

If you need serious data analysis, Velocity lets you sync with other tools like PowerBI or Google Sheets. Source: getvelocity.co.

Velocity offers a 30-day free trial. After that, pricing starts at $15/month when purchasing annually.

The post Build the exact Asana dashboards and reports you want with Velocity first appeared on Project Management Pros™. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Most people can get all the information they need to do their work directly within Asana, but from our consulting experience we’ve noticed that there is often a need to report to people who aren’t using Asana. This might be an executive team, another department, or an offsite meeting where paper handouts are helpful.

Asana’s reporting and exporting features are unfortunately very basic.

1. You can export data into a CSV file, but it’s formatted poorly and the tasks (and subtasks) don’t appear in any discernible order. Or…
2. You can print a list view or save it as a PDF, but it’s not customizable at all so you’re forced to print subtasks and task descriptions that you’d rather not.

Despite continuous grumbling in the Asana community, improving Asana’s reporting capabilities does not seem to be a priority for Asana, Inc. The ability to create nice-looking reports has been noticeably absent for years, which is a bit surprising for such a cutting-edge project management solution.

However, an ambitious developer has created Asana2Go, a Chrome extension that makes it possible to create perfectly formatted, customizable reports in a few clicks. It’s currently free while in beta.

To create the reports, all you need to do is multi-select the tasks and sections you want to turn into a report/PDF. This means you can skip some tasks within a project if you want. It works for My Tasks, Projects, and even Search Reports.

In short, Asana2Go allows you to reap all the benefits of Asana’s powerful task management but not get stuck when needing to share the data with outsiders.

Here’s an example of a customized report I designed using Sections, Tasks, Due Dates, Assignee, and a Custom Field called “Status.”

With some basic HTML and CSS styling, you can create beautiful reports with Asana data.

Pretty slick, right? Asana2Go has a number of reports built-in, like if you want to include Descriptions or Subtasks—or export directly to CSV in a more organized format than how Asana does natively.

But what makes the extension really shine is the ability to customize the reports using Markdown as well as HTML and the full Handlebars template language using custom helpers. Although using the out-of-the-box reports is easy, making custom reports is a bit technical so you may need to get assistance to build a report that suits your needs. Fortunately, that is a one-time process and it’s easy to share report templates with others.

Asana2Go has powerful capabilities, but might be a little overwhelming to those without technical backgrounds.

Creating an Asana report with Asana2Go

1. Install the Chrome extension. You’ll need to use the Chrome browser in order to use Chrome extensions.
2. Highlight the tasks you want in the report.
3. Select the Asana2Go icon in the Chrome toolbar.
4. Select which report template you want to use and select either “View + Copy” or “View + Print.”

Highlight tasks and select the Asana2Go icon in the toolbar to get started.

Privacy

For those concerned about the security and privacy of your Asana data, I spoke to the developer and he stated, “No data is stored. The only server in use is the Chrome extension server. The JavaScript processes the data but doesn’t save anything other than the formats themselves (name, description, CSS, markup).” (Project Management Pros has not confirmed this; it’s for your information only and you should always be cautious how you allow apps to connect to your Asana account.)

What do you think of Asana2Go? Is there anything else you wish it could do?

The post Finally, create nice-looking reports for Asana with the Asana2Go Chrome extension first appeared on Project Management Pros™. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Most people can get all the information they need to do their work directly within Asana, but from our consulting experience we’ve noticed that there is often a need to report to people who aren’t using Asana. This might be an executive team, another department, or an offsite meeting where paper handouts are helpful.

Asana’s reporting and exporting features are unfortunately very basic.

1. You can export data into a CSV file by project, but it’s formatted poorly and the tasks (and subtasks) don’t appear in any discernible order. Or…
2. You can print a list view or save it as a PDF, but it’s not customizable at all so you’re forced to print subtasks and task descriptions that you’d rather not.

Despite continuous grumbling in the Asana community, improving Asana’s exporting capabilities does not seem to be a priority for Asana, Inc. But one product that is targeting this issue is Bridge24.

Bridge24 provides enhanced reporting and exporting capabilities for Asana, as well as a few other tools like Trello and Basecamp. It provides a separate interface that—while not as pretty as Asana—allows more functionality around building custom filters for sorting, viewing, and combining your projects in specific ways.

Some of the specific features we thought were noteworthy include:

• View list projects as boards in Bridge24. Asana does not allow you to switch between a board and list view, but Bridge24 turns section headings into columns.
• Export into CSV or Excel files. Asana allows you export projects to CSV but it’s a bit of jumbled mess. Bridge24 does a better job allowing you to pick what data you want to export from tasks (i.e. which custom fields) in a simple, drag-and-drop type interface. You can also combine multiple project datasets.
• Visualize Asana data in interactive charts. Everybody loves colorful charts, right?
• Automatic report generation. Although the reporting is limited to a few predefined reports right now, they plan to add the ability to customize reports soon.

Visualize your Asana data in charts, such as breaking down assignee or tasks completed by week. Source: Bridge24.com.

Search and sort tasks across multiple projects easier with Bridge24. Source: Bridge24.com.

Print reports based on filtered tasks. Source: Bridge24.com.

Bridge24 offers a free trial that never expires. According to their website, the free trial is limited in certain ways including 50 tasks per export, limited data history, inability to use custom fields, and only 3 custom filters can be saved. But hey, it’s free so try it out. Bridge24 costs around $5 – 8 per month when purchased annually.

What do you think of Bridge24? Is there anything else you wish it could do?

The post Export Asana data just the way you want with Bridge24 first appeared on Project Management Pros™. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.

Email is a stalwart of the office, and it’s not going away any time soon. For organizations using Microsoft Office 365®, you can install a free app called Asana for Outlook to turn emails into trackable tasks.

Without having to leave Outlook, you can now perform two actions in Asana:

1. Create a new task in Asana with an assignee, project, due date, and description
2. Add the content of an email as a task comment in Asana

By selecting the Asana icon in Outlook, you can create new tasks or search for an existing task to add the email message as a task comment. Source: Asana Blog.

Although users have long been able create tasks in Asana directly from their email (by forwarding to x@mail.asana.com from their email address associated with their Asana account), this simplifies the process and makes it possible to add a project and due date.

There has already been a more powerful plugin for Outlook for Windows called Sendana that also allows you to do things like create Asana project conversations from Outlook. (You can get a free license of Sendana when purchasing the Asana Training Masterclass). But the official Asana for Outlook plugin brings cross-platform access and is available in the browser for Office 365, and it also supports Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016 for Mac.

Asana for Outlook helps you transform passive emails into actionable tasks. You can install it from the Microsoft AppSource.

Although the new add-in is helpful, there are still significant limitations as opposed to just creating the task directly in Asana.

For example, with Outlook for Asana you cannot:

• Add a task to multiple projects
• Add Tags or Custom Field data
• Add followers
• Attach other relevant files

So keep in mind that you will often still need to edit the file within Asana to add all the information you need. Because of this, we recommend you get in the habit of creating tasks directly in Asana.

What do you think of Asana for Outlook? Is there anything else you wish it could do?

The post Asana for Outlook add-in creates Asana tasks directly from Office 365 first appeared on Project Management Pros™. Learn everything you need about Asana in the Asana Training Masterclass, an online course with over 8 hours of HD video training.