A tool to archive a section?

… and yet another way to do it that isn’t right or wrong. See, agreeing isn’t that hard.

… I’m also fine to agree to disagree though.

Cheers, indeed!

1 Like

I’d disagree on putting the date at the beginning of the task, that would have defeated the purpose of due date. Plus, there’s no way to sort task if you manually type the date format on the task name. Reordering task means we have to manually change the date for each tasks modified.

We all have different scenarios and the beauty of Asana is the flexibility to adapt to each workflow. All my tasks came from Airtable with generated project code number and standardized name through Zapier. Adding date per your suggestion makes task name unnecessarily lengthy.

I have been using this workflow since the time when creating section is as easy as adding colon, and I don’t see why archiving section now couldn’t be achieved like it used to.

1 Like

Obviously you would sort by due date. To your point, having sections with dates is moot also as you have due dates you can sort by.

Just because there is a way to do something doesn’t mean that the system needs to now change because of it. There are many better ways of displaying dates. Zero need to archive sections.

It seems you are limiting the need to archive sections to this use case or your own personal ones. There are plenty of use cases where archiving sections makes a lot of sense. Ones that have nothing to do with dates.

4 Likes

such as?

  1. Tracking phased work with clients where implementation cycles go through various stages (sections) that become active/inactive throughout each phased implementation. Archiving sections that are inactive yet retaining work completed within
  2. Sales pipeline tracking where sections are defined by territories so custom fields can be used as secondary filter or sort.
  3. Offer tracking where sections define the types of offers, tasks are the client opportunities per offer and custom fields provide the detail/flavor to the offers. Where some offers are seasonal, on hold, etc it would be nice to temporarily archive those.

Those are 3 that are top of mind. Remember, archiving can be a simple as “hiding” a section to not generate any unnecessary noise within a project view.

Many other recommendations and votes supporting this feature can be seen here: Archive a Section in a Project

3 Likes
  1. that’s what the kanban view is for
  2. territories go away after the work is done? I think not.
  3. If an offer is seasonal, then the project should end. PLEASE do not tell me you are doing evergreen projects? A project by definition has and end. Even so, the better way to handle would be to do Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 for a year, then archive that year’s worth of work and start a new years. Or whatever cadence.

Setting up the workflow properly would remove the need to hack best practices to fit a need.

  1. Kanban is a view. You nailed it.
  2. In this case, actually, the territories do change or are often abandoned. I didn’t even provide the specifics to the line of work or elaborate why it would be valuable to retain the information within a single project. Rather, you related this use case to your own past experience/understanding and assumed the workflow was setup improperly.
  3. See point #2

I’m going to circle back to your “agree to disagree” and save the energy. While I want to appreciate your perspective and feedback, I’m not going to argue over something with someone that chooses to draw lines around how work should be managed through a tool. Respectfully, take the time to consider how work can be done beyond your own understanding and you might learn a few things.

The main point is just because this particular product feedback doesn’t support or benefit the way in which you advocate the use of Asana, doesn’t mean it isn’t something of value to others. There is a lot of feedback that I upvote which wouldn’t really change my workflow. Yet, I’m not afraid to see the value of those suggestions and how they both strengthen the platform and support the vision.

8 Likes

Respectfully consider how works is supposed to be done.

The main point is, Asana works if you use it correctly. Trying to hammer with a screwdriver then putting in support tickets to have the screwdriver updated is not the way to go about it.

I do not care about changing my workflow. If it makes sense, it makes sense. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Stop getting your feelings hurt.

We don’t have to agree. It’s probably best if we don’t. No hard feelings on this end. Thanks for sharing your opinions.

3 Likes

Cool.

I can argue SOPs all day, but I don’t want to create enemies over it.

Cheers!

1 Like

Hi @Getz_Pro and thanks for reaching out!

While I do understand your frustration regarding the issues you touch based in your post, please try to keep your feedback constructive and respectful of other Forum members; as a reminder, you can find our Community Forum Guidelines here.

@LEGGO I do understand your concerns regarding the ability for users to archive sections in Asana, and our team is aware that many other users are requesting this feature. Unfortunately, I don’t have any substantial update to share with you today, but rest ensured that we’re closely following up on this behind the scenes and representing your voice :slight_smile:

As always, if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to drop me a DM or to reply on this thread, I’ll be more than happy to help!

5 Likes

YES PLEASE!!! I think about this all the time. Every time I am done with a section I would really like it to just be out of my way - but not disappear completely.

2 Likes

Yes, this would be great. Along with a function to Open All or Collapse All sections - even as a view standard.

I’m not frustrated in the least. What guidelines did I violate?

Ability to hide/archive empty sections would be really helpful. Like was possible back in the days when a section had the “features” of a task … including completing it.
I simply do not want to delete all the tasks in it, just to get rid of the empty section.

2 Likes

BTW, my sprint (Section== sprint) example was an artificial one. I rarely or never use Sections as a date-driven breakdown of my Projects. Usually it’s topical:
image
Eventually all the tasks in a certain Section will be done, and no more will occur, since that activity is over. A new activity or goal may spring up and it will need a new Section to keep all the logically related Tasks together. Then that Section will need closing in its turn.

2 Likes

Sorry I’m a month and a half late to the party. In response to the original post @Bastien_Siebman, the tool you’ve described wouldn’t be useful to me as I would want to maintain the project/section/task layout and just “hide” completed/archived sections, as others have mentioned here.

For me, a way I could see Asana implementing it would be to add an “Archive/Hide” option for the section, and then perhaps it would collapse but with a small > marker on the left to indicate something is hidden there. Maybe hovering over it would show section names (because you would want them grouped together rather than have a marker per section), and clicking it would display the hidden sections again. And a toggle to “display all archived sections” and “hide all archived sections”.

1 Like

I made this comment a year or so ago after Asana decided to change the way they do sections. Before sections were so easy. They were tasks themselves and I could check them off just like a task. Also, I could assign myself a section instead of having to assign myself multiple smaller tasks. It made my calendar much more manageable. After they changed it, all those features went away plus you couldn’t actually get rid of the section either. Very disappointing.

2 Likes

where’s tool?