How to use Asana

Asana is the project management tool used to track and manage all projects within route1.io. Asana allows you to track project tasks, and deadlines in an organized way, and collaboration within Asana is easy. For more resources on Asana visit their FAQ page.   

Each project is tracked on its own Asana board. You can add and assign tasks with deadlines to project members and view the project schedule as a Gantt chart. 

Best Practices to be Asana-savvy 

  • Manage your inbox well by actively replying to comments and questions and keeping the conversation within the thread of the task
  • Check which tasks are assigned to you and the due dates of each to prioritize the actions required. You can see all your assigned tasks in the My Tasks section.
  • Mark a task as complete once done or leave a comment/add an attachment to add more context or to answer questions the route1.io team might have.  

Part 1: Managing your work through Asana

My Tasks in Asana

All of the tasks that have been assigned to you will appear in the My Tasks section.

You can rename, reorder, and create and delete sections within My Tasks to design your perfect personal organization system.

 Here are some tips for organizing your workload in Asana.

  • Organize My Tasks with your own customized sections to help you manage your work
  • Triage new tasks every morning
  • Give every task a due date.
  • Use start dates to clarify how much time a task will take
Different ways of viewing your tasks

Use your List, Board and Calendar view options to see what is due, upcoming, and overdue. Use the view that is most convenient for you.

Rearranging your tasks to prioritize your work
  • You can sort your My Tasks by the due date, likes, project, creation time, or alphabetically.
  • Turning on “Sort within sections” while in list view will keep your tasks grouped by section and will sort the tasks inside those sections.
  • You can use the Complete, Incomplete, and View All menu to show only incomplete tasks, only completed tasks, or all tasks assigned to you.
  • If you’re viewing completed tasks only, you can even specify that you want to see tasks completed today, yesterday, or within the last one, two, or three weeks.

Part 2: Managing your work through Asana

My Inbox in Asana

Inbox is your notification center for Asana. Your Inbox displays updates on all projects you’re a member of and tasks that you collaborate on or are assigned to. Comments on tasks will appear here. Make sure to reply to comments to keep tasks moving forward. Add screenshots for more information.

Email Notification Settings

You can access your email notification settings to set your email preference for activity updates and summaries with an option to turn on/off and pause notifications

Filtering

You can filter the type of notifications you receive.

Quick Actions

Use the quick action panel when hovering over the task in your inbox to create a follow-up task, Mark as unread and/or Archive notification by hovering over the symbols that correspond to the action.
After you’ve read or taken action on a notification in the Inbox tab, you can archive it.  

Once a notification has been archived using the archive button above, it will be sent to the Archive tab.

Part 3: Tips & Tricks in Asana

Tip 1: Filter on Incomplete Tasks

The All tasks feature allows you to filter certain tasks for example Incomplete tasks. This is useful to simplify the board and keep the focus on the remaining tasks, especially in projects with a long list of tasks to complete.
The Filter feature allows you to filter on your tasks, due tasks, or custom fields.

Tip 2: Favorite your projects and portfolios

Add a favorites star next to your projects or portfolios that you want quick access to in your Favorites section in the left-hand panel.

Part 4: Portfolios in Asana

What are portfolios?

Portfolios provide a holistic view of all your important projects in one place. With project portfolio management you can organize your most important projects, monitor their health in real-time, and drill in for more information, and keep your team updated on progress.


Portfolios allow you to organize multiple projects and give a high-level overview of each project’s progress. As a client, you will have your own portfolio in Asana where your project boards will be housed.


From the Portfolio view, you can:

1.    View the latest status of each project
2.    View the progress % of each project
3.    View or edit a project’s due date or date range
4.    View the custom field values for each project
5.    View the project owner

Status Updates

Update the project’s status regularly to keep all the project stakeholders up to date with what’s happening in the project.
Project stakeholders will receive a message in their inbox when a project status is updated.

Rule of thumb is to update the project status weekly/bi-weekly during status meetings.

You can also click on the project in your Portfolio and request an update from the project owner.

Timeline view

You can use the timeline view to see the schedules of the projects in the portfolio and which milestones need to be achieved for each project. 
You can also click on the milestone symbol for more context. You can change the display to zoom in and out of the timeline.

Adding portfolios to your Favorites section

Add a star to the portfolio for it to display in your favorites section in the left panel.

References