Adding your team's work to Asana

In this article, we’ll explain the different ways you can add your team's work to Asana. Whether you're starting from scratch or importing data via CSV, we'll provide you with straightforward instructions. We'll also cover the basics of organizing your work effectively within Asana, helping your team collaborate more efficiently and stay on top of your objectives.

How Asana is organized

Asana’s structure is designed to create a seamless connection between users and the work they are responsible for. Here's an overview of how work is organized in Asana.

How work is organized

1. Goals are high-level objectives that represent the overarching priorities for an organization or team. They are set within Asana Goals and provide a clear direction for the work being done.

2. Portfolios are containers that group related projects together. They help track progress toward specific initiatives or objectives.

3. Projects organize and manage work related to a specific initiative. Projects house tasks and subtasks, allowing for dividing work into manageable units and facilitating collaboration. 

4. Tasks represent the individual action items within a project. They have due dates and can be assigned to specific team members.

5. Subtasks are smaller units of work within a task, often used for breaking down more complex tasks into manageable steps.

Creating projects in Asana

Projects organize and manage work related to a specific initiative. From team meeting agendas to event planning, projects are how you’ll capture a lot of your team's work. To create a project in Asana, click +Create. You’ll be presented with three different options: blank project, use a template, or import spreadsheet.

Blank project

Blank projects allow you to customize the project completely from the start. If you feel comfortable with the basics of project setup, use a blank project to build it from scratch.

After selecting Blank project, you can fill out project details, choose a layout, pick a color and icon, and set privacy settings.

You have the ability to add a personal touch to your project by using custom project icons. You can upload a JPG or PNG image to replace the default project icon. Once uploaded, these custom icons will be displayed in various areas, such as your sidebar, home, portfolios, and team pages, to help you easily locate your projects.

Using a project template

Templates can help you set up various workflows that you can further customize to meet your team’s needs.

To access Asana-curated templates when creating a project, select "Use a template" and then choose Asana-curated under the Types section. You can select a specific use case and layout from the available templates by scrolling down. To use the template, click Use template in the top-right corner.

Importing a spreadsheet

The CSV Importer will help you move your workflow out of spreadsheet software such as Excel to Asana, so you can get started right away on any project. 

Learn more about best practices for importing CSV files.

Organizing projects in Asana

Here are a few best practices to ensure you set projects up for success.

Project name conventions

When creating a project, you can change its name anytime by clicking the arrow beside the project title and selecting Edit project details. It is important to maintain consistency in project titles. For instance, several teams begin the project title with the fiscal year and quarter, such as "FY25 Q4 Marketing Launch".

Tasks

Add relevant tasks related to your project. Ensure they are action-oriented and have an assignee and due date. Learn more about task best practices.

Sections

Use sections to divide tasks within your project, this allows for a clear workflow and effective task management. For example, a project for creative requests could have sections like New requests, Assigned, In progress, Review, and Completed. 

Using portfolios to organize and group related projects

Portfolios provide a holistic view of all your important projects in one place.  

Creating a portfolio

To create a portfolio:

1. Click on Portfolios in the sidebar and click New portfolio
2. Click on Insights + button in the sidebar and select New portfolio 
3. Click on Projects + button in the sidebar and select New portfolio 

Projects can live in multiple portfolios. Asana allows projects to exist in multiple portfolios simultaneously. This flexibility ensures that projects are accurately represented within different contexts and align with various organizational goals.

Portfolio view

From the portfolio view, you can:

1. Add another project to the portfolio
2. View the latest status of each project
3. View the progress or milestone % of each project
4. View or edit a project's due date or date range
5. View or edit a project's priority
6. View the project owner
7. View the custom field values for each project

Learn more about using portfolios to organize your projects.