Navigating Asana

Modified on Thu, 11 Jul at 12:59 PM

Asana is a comprehensive work management tool designed to help individuals and teams keep track of tasks, delegate responsibilities, monitor progress, and communicate in real-time. Whether you are working on a simple task or a complex project, Asana makes it easy to collaborate, streamline workflows, and achieve your goals.

Asana's interface is divided into 5 areas:

Sidebar - access homepage, My tasks, inbox, teams, and projects in your workspace or organization
Header - contains the actions and views for the project, My tasks, or view you're currently using
Top bar - Search, quick add, My settings, and workspace or organization settings
Main pane - displays a list of tasks, messages, calendar, progress or files
Task details pane - contains the details of a task or messages

Sidebar

Customize your sidebar

Drag and drop your sections to reorder them
Resize your sidebar

Changing your sidebar’s color

Click on your avatar on the top right corner. From the drop-down menu, select Settings and click on the Display tab to toggle the color setting for your sidebar.

Starred

Star projects, portfolios, people, dashboards, saved searches, and teams to save and bookmark them on your sidebar for easier access. Simply navigate to the desired page and click on the star icon next to the title at the top of the page. The Starred section can be used to curate work that is top of mind for you or that you access often, like a favorites list. Only you see what you've starred.

Projects

The sidebar lists the projects in your team or workspace. The lock icon indicates a project that is private to members. Click the + icon to create a new project or a new portfolio

Header

From the header, you can:

Access drop-down menu with actions for the project
Favorite the project
Set a status for your project
View a list of project members and limited access members
Share your project
Access the customize menu

Views

The header allows you to switch between different views in projects check out this article to learn more about Project views.

Top bar and quick add button

From the top global top bar, you can:

Run a global search
Click the Quick add button to create a task, project, team, or invite someone to Asana
Access your settings, profile, switch between your workspaces and organizations, create a new workspace or team, or log out

Main pane

When you select a project, tag, or person from the sidebar, you'll see the relevant list of tasks in the main pane. This is also where you see search results, Inbox notifications and Messages.

From the main pane, you can:

Add a new task, section, milestone, or task template
Mark a task as complete or incomplete and view/edit the task name
Filter tasks
Sort tasks
Hide custom fields
Identify a task's assignee, due date, and other custom fields
Create a public link to the task, save layout, search project and manage dependencies
Customize the project

You can also see the amount of likes a task has received from the main pane.

Task details pane

The task details pane, is where you see the details for a task you've selected in the main pane.

From the top of the task details pane, you can:

Mark the task complete or incomplete
Like the task, attach files, add subtasks, copy the task url, track the time spent on the task, view the task in full screen, view more actions, and close the task details pane
Edit the task's name
Assign the task
Set a due date & time
Identify what project the task is in, or add it to a project
Set dependencies
Add a description to give the task more context
Post a comment, ask a question
Add or remove task collaborators

Learn more about the functionality available in the task details pane in the tasks article.

Important Spaces

Home

From your home page, you can view the number of tasks completed and the number of people you have collaborated with during the past week or month.

You can customize your home by dragging and dropping widgets from the customize panel. Click Customize to select the widgets you want to add.

You can organize your widgets by dragging them around or clicking the three dot icon at the top of each widget to change its size or remove it from your home.

Inbox

Inbox is your notification center for Asana. Your inbox displays updates on projects you're a member of, and tasks that you collaborate on or that are assigned to you within a given workspace or organization. You can control which projects you receive inbox notifications for through project notification settings. For more on Inbox check out this article.

My Tasks

My Tasks acts as your individual to-do list and automatically gathers tasks assigned to you across all projects, enabling you to see and organize your work in one centralized place. You can view these tasks in different formats such as a list, board, or calendar, providing flexibility in how you manage and prioritize your work. For more on My tasks check out this article.