Asana is a mobile work and web management productivity platform designed to help teams plan, track, organize and manage their work. It was founded by Justin Rosenstein and Justin Moskovitz in 2008 but launched commercially in April 2012.
It was formerly known as Tasks and as of September 2020, they were valued at $5.5 billion.
Asana is an efficient web and project management that caters to marketers, it’s a popular tool for remote work and it’s suitable for campaigns and Agile management.
| Asana | Ratings |
| Ease of Use | 4.8 |
| Pricing | 4.5 |
| Automation | 4.5 |
| Integration | 4.6 |
| Analytics | 4.6 |
Getting Started With Asana
This is a detailed walk-through on how to get acquainted with Asana.
1. Create an account by selecting Get Started on the right side of the homepage.
Select Sign Up, and confirm your email address. Though optional, you select your primary role (project manager, senior leader or individual contributor).
If you don’t want to do that right away, select Skip.
When you’ve set up your account, a pop-up shows your 30-day trial begins and it gives you access to popular paid features like Portfolios and Timelines. As soon as the trial ends, you continue with a Basic plan.
This is what the dashboard/worksheet looks like.
Asana Pricing
Asana has 3 pricing plans which include:
a. Basic Plan – costs $0 and is for individuals or teams getting started with project management. It comes with Unlimited essentials to work with (storage, activity, log, projects, comments, tasks); Three ways to view projects (Calendar, List and Board views); Basic workflow (free integrations with 100+ apps – GSuite, Slack and Outlook – and time tracking apps); security essentials that entail Google SSO, 2FA, SOC 2 Type II compliance and 15 user limits; Basic reporting and community support through the platform’s forum, guide and webinars.
b. Premium Plan – $10.99 per user, per month; $13.49 monthly.
For teams that need to create project plans with confidence. It’s billed per user per month and billed at $13.49 monthly. The plan comes with 4 ways to view your projects (List, Timeline, Board and Calendar); Unlimited essentials (projects, comments, log, storage, tasks, activity); Reporting with custom fields, advanced search; Unlimited dashboard projects and milestones; Scaled security that entails admin console, no user limit, unlimited free guests and private projects and community support that has personalised customer success options that require eligibility.
c. Business Plan – $24.99 per user, per month.
For teams and companies that need to manage work across initiatives. It’s billed per user per month at $30.49 annually.
The plan comes with Advanced Reporting (Unlimited dashboards, Power BI, Workloads and integrations with Tableau); Scaled security with admin console, no user limit, unlimited free guests, and private projects; Unlimited essentials (storage, projects, comments, activity, log, tasks); Project and portfolio views (with 4 project views, Goals and Portfolios); Community and personalized customer success options that require eligibility.
How Asana’s Dashboard Works
Asana’s dashboard (for a first-time user) has enough components and is understandable. The dashboard has buttons or commands on both the vertical and horizontal axis.
On the horizontal side of your screen, 9 variables aid you and your team. They include:
1. The Overview button shows you and your teams’ overall activity for the day or week. Goals can be created/connected, and resources that will help align your team with a project’s vision can also be created as well as links, files and resources. Milestones (accomplishments you want to celebrate. Deadlines and release schedules are also assigned.
You (as a project lead/head) can track the team with the roadmap by the side. Project roles are assigned to members and are updated regularly.
2. The List button helps set, view and navigate your works (projects) in a listicle.
It’s user-friendly and the sections allow drag-and0drop. Sections are editable and more can be added, team members can be assigned to projects and allow for regular updates.
3. The Board button helps set, view, navigate and assign work (projects) in a board form.
It is categorised into To-do, Doing and Done sections to know the state of a project. Sections (task names) can be edited and updated daily and they allow cover images.
Tasks can be duplicated, sections can be duplicated and copied, and follow-up tasks can be created. Tasks can either be marked as a Milestone or Approval. The board feature makes it easy to add a Substack, ask questions, post an update, and add dependencies and attachments.
4. The Timeline button allows tasks, projects and scheduling tasks to be multi-selected; they can be distinguished with colours.
The timeline feature is like a map and sections are viewed in a timeline.
5. The Calendar button allows projects to be viewed in a calendar format and helps you keep track of milestones and important deadlines.
6. The Workflow button acts as a pathway on how a project should take shape.
7. The Dashboard button allows projects to be viewed in graphs, and charts and can be customised with colours.
8. The Message button allows messages to be sent to kick off a project, brainstorm ideas and discuss tasks. The message feature allows video recording, emoji and file or image attachments.
On the vertical side of your screen, you have;
1. The Home button is a broad-like sheet that shows you what you’ve been working on. It can be customized.
2. My Tasks button is like a to-do list of projects to be done at certain times.
3. The Inbox button is the central hub for notifications for updates, activities and messages.
4. The Reporting button gives you insights into real-time data across projects, departments and teams.
5. Portfolio helps monitor status and non-member workload across multiple projects.
6. Goals help you plan and add tasks that connect to your organisation’s objectives.
Features of Asana
This detailed section covers the unique features of Asana and navigation on how to go around it.
1. Multiple Project Views
With Asana, viewing projects doesn’t have to be daunting and boring as you can choose what mode you wish to view your projects. There are more than 7 modes of viewing projects but for this article, we are using the 30-day trial/Basic plan; hence we’re limited to just 4 viewing modes/options – List, Board, Calendar and Files.
How It Works
You have to be logged into your account and also keep in mind that your 30-day trial is counting. You are presented with a basic homepage that greets you with your name, it also shows work based on your week/month, the number of tasks completed and the number of collaborators.
There’s a customise option that helps you edit your home background, widgets can be dragged to the Home Screen and they can also be removed or recorded.
Select My Tasks on the left side and view the 4 projects viewing options – List, Board, Calendar and Files. There is also an option to ass tasks (field names), task names, due dates and projects.
For the List view, under Recently Assigned, I’ll rename Draft Project to Project Miami and will detail it. I can choose to make it public (share with team/project mates) or just keep it private. This project can be added to another project (I’ll add mine to my multi-functional project). I can add another task under it.
For Do Next Week, this entails projects or tasks I (and my teammates) will do next week. I rename/write a task name and add details on what the project/task is about. I titled it Product Curve Essentials with the start date of 7th October and 10th October as the end date. It will be done next week and I made it public. I added another task and named it Product A and detailed it. I made it private.
For the Do Later section, I named a task Product Paths and detailed it. It’s a public task and it’s meant to be completed between the 25th and 31st of October. It’s under Product Curve projects and I added a description.
Sections (Recently assigned, Do next week and Do today) are editable and collapsible. Depending on the task/project being worked on, more sections can be added.
What we worked on is currently in the List point of view and it can be seen from another point of view. To see these tasks in the Board POV or mode, select Board right next to List. The Board POV allows for drag and drop.
To view in the Calendar format, select Calendar next to Board. The Calendar POV is broader that the Board POV. To view tasks, select the left or right arrow beside the month (October 2022). To add a task, you can select Add a task at the top of the sheet or just select Add a task on any calendar date.
With the Calendar format, tasks are viewed or put in categories ie incomplete tasks, completed tasks and all tasks. With the Calendar POV, tasks are scheduled with their dates.
2. Reporting
Reports can be viewed in a dashboard that has 4 customisable fields – Completed tasks, Incomplete tasks, Overdue tasks and Total tasks.
How It Works
Tasks and projects are viewed in graph form and can be updated. Each filter can be edited/updated for you to know a project’s progress.
I click on Incomplete Task (filter) to know some project status. When I select Number (column), there are options on how to view my tasks/projects.
The default viewing mode is Number. I can choose to view my Incomplete Tasks in Column mode, Line mode, Burnup mode (with the burnup mode, you can choose your projects within days, weeks and months), Donut mode or Lollipop mode.
Whatever viewing mode you choose can be seen on the dashboard.
The 4 customisable fields can be viewed in Column, Line, Burnup, Donut and Lollipop modes. By default, they are in the Number mode. On the dashboard, there’s an Add Chart menu/option that lets you view tasks/projects via progress, resourcing, work health and resourcing. You can also add a custom chart.
3. Easy Addition of Teammates
At the left side of your Asana dashboard, under ‘My Workspace’ you can invite people/teammates. Select Invite People, type in their email address, choose the projects to add them to and click Send.
You’ll get a notification that you’ve added a teammate and in a few seconds, your teammate shows under My Workspace. With a teammate added, projects/tasks can be assigned to them.
4. Goal Setting and Assignment
This feature helps both in setting team and personal goals.
How It Works
Select Add Goals, enter a goal name (for this article, I named the goal Product Curve Q4), and assigned myself as the owner, for the time I chose H2Q4 (note that the time is divided into two halves – H1 and H2 – and under the two halves are four quarters Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4; I selected H2 – second half – and Q4 – fourth quarter of the year, I made it public and added teammates, made teammates able to edit (if you choose to comment, teammates can’t edit but they can comments and link reference work – hence choose the option suitable for your goal) and I chose the update method to be automatic.
When you’re done selecting, select Save goal. To update the goal, select your goal (in this case Q4), select your goal’s status (I selected On Track) and rename the status update.
There’s a summary you’ll have to fill in. At the end of the summary, you can add a new field and your teammates will be notified. At the top of the status update, you select when a reminder should be sent for the status update.
When done, select Post. The goal is viewed in a dashboard form and since it’s public, teammates can update by selecting view all.
When you scroll down, you can connect a project that will help automatically update your goals project.
Select Connect a project and pick any preferred project (I chose a multi-functional project).
You can disconnect the project by selecting the three dots.
You can add your goal’s description, add subgoals and link relevant portfolios or projects for references. When done, you can share it by selecting share at the top of the dashboard.
4. Monitoring Teammates’ Progress and Workload with Portfolio
The Portfolio helps in monitoring your teams’ progress on a task/project.
How It Works
Select Explore Portfolios and an illustration loads and you’re presented with a worksheet that has your projects.
The projects are viewed in a timeline POV. For my multi-functional project, I have 3 overdue tasks and I’ll work on them by clicking the project, they are under To-do. When I hover around Project Miami, there are three dots by the side, select it to mark it as a Milestone or Approval. Or just click on the project, and you can add a text description or post an update and add collaborators.
When you’re done with the work, select Mark Complete and it changes to Completed. The task link can be copied and shared.
When you’ve completed a project, it’s marked green. Click on Portfolio, select your project and there’s an overall summary of the status of the project and the progress. Click on Timeline and it’s been updated, click on Progress and select update status for the update. By the right, you’re shown highlights that can be dragged into your update to effectively tell your story.
I dragged the first highlight (1 Project on track) to the question – how are your projects going and I selected Post. When you scroll down, you see recent status updates, select view all to see your portfolio health and the image can be downloaded.
When you select messages, it helps send messages that will help kick off projects. Click on send messages to members, I add a teammate to send the message to, videos can be recorded and files/images can be sent. Messages can be upvoted.
When you click on Portfolios, they can be viewed in tiles and list forms.
Selecting New Portfolio gives you the option of creating/naming a new portfolio that will contain various projects and you can choose a privacy option.
5. Multiple App Integrations
Since Asana serves as a project management platform, it gives you the flexibility of creating one space for helping your team to focus.
When integrated with selected apps, it keeps your data safe and you can its API to develop custom solutions for your team and the way you work.
Asana can be integrated into more than 100 app categories including Productivity, Sales, Marketing and Design, Finance, HR and Communication.
Some of the apps include Chrome, Zapier, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud, Invision, YouTube, Mailchimp, HubSpot Workflow, Azure Active Directory and Okta.
6. Workflow
This feature helps you connect teams, organise work and streamline projects which in return creates an efficient workflow. It helps automate tasks, integrates tools, improves processes and templatizes workflows.
How It Works
Select Portfolios and choose a file that has several projects in it. I selected My First Portfolio, selected Pro and clicked on Workflow.
You can start right away by selecting Form Submissions (to help create a form that will turn submissions into tasks), select task templates or add apps (Outlook, Zendesk, Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Slack) or you can select Skip right away.
You have to select how tasks should be added to the project. An edited form is displayed and it can be previewed, shared and copied.
When you select Skip, you are directed to add triggers. Each section can be renamed. For all sections, depending on whether you set a trigger or action, you may need to connect Flowsana. You can also add more actions.
When done with the first section, select Next. It takes you to a new section and what was done in the first section can be repeated here.
Asana Ranking & Why We Recommend This Product
Now we are aware that Asana is a project management platform but does it stack up against specific user-centric parameters?
In this section, we’ll look at how Asana ranks against some parameters. Here are our findings:
1. Monitoring and Reporting
Asana’s monitoring and reporting feature makes use of Portfolio to help to monitor your teammates (and personal) progress on a project. This feature makes it possible to view your work in a Timeline POV and can be updated daily or as soon as you finish your quota.
When it comes to reporting, it is customisable easy to set up and understandable and can be viewed from 4 different POVs.
2. Communication
Asana allows you to share project updates, celebrate wins and milestones, create templates, make use of emojis, upvote an update and give feedback in one place.
3. Scheduling and Planning
Asana helps you see tasks, projects and assignments on a calendar. This helps you manage your time, workload and deadlines. And you are regularly reminded via your email.
4. Integrations
Asana helps you integrate apps that will aid communication better and improve communication. It’s very beneficial for remote work and hybrid teams as it keeps your team connected. You can integrate over 200 apps on Asana.
5. Customisable
Right from the home page to add widgets, Asana lets you tailor your worksheet or project to your taste or needs. Portfolios and reports can also be customised.
6. Dashboard and Graphical Reports
Asana helps you visualize your data, reports and insights on a dashboard. The dashboard was released in 2020 and the reporting tool helps you view your work in a meaningful way. Five charts help you in communicating your project data – bar chart, doughnut chart, numeric roll-ups, lollipop charts and burnup charts.
With these formats, looking at data and insights doesn’t have to be boring.
7. Task Management
More than a to-do list, the Asana task management feature helps prioritize tasks, hit deadlines and manage time effectively. Workflows and templates help you automatically update and organise your projects, projects (tasks) are grouped into sections and a project schedule follows suit.
It’s like a Do-It-Yourself feature and it’s easy (even for a first-timer).
Comparative Analysis: Asana Review vs Trello
This section takes a look at Trello as an alternative project management tool. We’ll cover Trello’s pricing plan, ratings from G2 and Capterra and features.
About Trello
Trello is a web-based list-making application and it’s developed by Trello Enterprises and is a subsidiary of Atlassian.
It’s a work management tool that lets teams ideate plans, organise workflows, collaborate on projects and track progress in a productive, rewarding and visual way.
Trello was released at a TechCrunch event by Fog Creek Software founder Joel Spolsky. Wired magazine named Trello one of the 7 Coolest Startups You Haven’t Of Yet in September 2011. In 2014, Trello raised $10.3 million in funding from Spark Capital and Index Ventures.
As of October 2019, Trello had 50 million users. With Trello, users create their task board with different columns and move between them. Trello can be used for personal and business purposes including lesson planning, gaming, web design, law office case management, school bulletin, software project management and real estate management.
Trello’s Features and Services
1. Integrations
Trello can be integrated with some apps that cut across some categories like Designer tools, Analytics & Reporting, Sales & Support, Product & Design, Social Media & Marketing, HR & Operations, IT & Project Management, and Communication & Collaboration among others.
2. Butler automation
This no-code automation helps you create triggers and actions that make work, projects and work easier.
3. Viewing Boards
You can view your projects with Table, Timeline, Board, Map, Workspace, Calendar and Dashboard views that bring fresh perspectives to your work.
4. Templates
Blueprints and easy-to-use templates that cut across various categories including Personal, Business, Remote work, HR & Operations, Education, Project & Product Management, and Productivity amongst others.
5. Power Ups
Helps bring additional features to your board and helps integrate your favourite apps.
TRELLO PRICING
This gives you the option of choosing a plan that will meet your needs.
1. Free $0
This plan is for individuals/teams who want to organise any product. With this plan comes 2FA, iOS and Android mobile apps, assigned and due dates, unlimited cards, up to 10 boards for Workspace, 250 Workspace command runs per month and unlimited storage (10MB/file)
2. Standard $5 billed annually per user ($6 billed monthly)
This plan is for small teams that need to manage work and scale collaboration. With this plan comes saved searches, 1000 workspace command runs per month, a custom field, advanced checklists, unlimited boards, and single board guests.
3. Premium $10 billed annually per user ($12.50 billed monthly)
This plan is suitable for teams that need to track and visualize multiple projects in several ways including Calendars, Timelines and Boards.
With this plan comes all things in the Standard plan including views – Calendar, Map, Table, Dashboard and Timeline; workspace views – Table & Calendar; collections, simple data export; workspace level templates; admin and security features.
4. Enterprise (custom)
50 contacts – $17.50 per user/monthly ($210 annually)
500 contacts – $16.25 per user/monthly ($195 annually)
5000 contacts – $7.38 per user/monthly ($88.50 annually)
300 contacts – $17.08 per user/monthly ($205 annually)
3000 contacts – $8.96 per user/monthly ($107.50 annually)
This plan is for organisations that need to work across teams with more control and security. With this plan comes everything in the Premium including SSO and user provisioning with Atlassian Access, Unlimited Workspace, Public board management, Multi-board guests, Attachment permissions, Organisation-visible boards and Power-up administration.
Benefits That Make Asana Stand Out
We’ve gotten a brief overview between Asana and Trello, we’ll use this section to highlight some of Asana’s features that make it better than Trello. Let’s get into it.
1. Project Views
Viewing projects or tasks don’t have to be boring. When creating projects, you can choose to view them in any of Asana’s viewing modes which are List, Board, Timeline, Calendar, Files, Progress and Forms.
2. The free version (30-day trial) is enough to get started and you have access to a lot of its features.
3. It is desktop, website and mobile-friendly.
4. Asana is flexible enough to support bug tracking, task iterations, sprint planning, roadmaps feedback and things that concern Agile project management.
5. The user interface makes working smooth as they are minimal and consistent all around.
Conclusion
We’ve come to the end of this article and have covered Asana and some features that make it a product worth trying out. Do try it out and we’ll be in the comment section to hear your feedback(s).
13 Project Management Software to Use in 2024 | Product Curve
December 7, 2023 at 2:55 PM[…] Franciso-based American software is a mobile and web work management platform that is designed to help teams and organizations organize, track and manage their work. Founded in 2008, it was commercially launched in April 2012. In September 2020, the company was […]
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