Ability to link/categorize projects in portfolios

English Forum Product Feedback
1

Hello,
We often have multiple projects in portfolios that are a part of a similar initiative, so certain data fields are the same through the life of the project. It would be a great feature to be able to categorize/group projects together inside of portfolios and apply Rules based on it.
I could see Rules in the portfolio that - combined with this feature - could take Asana to the next level. Something as simple as checking if certain fields were changed, applying a Status Update to the multiple projects, nesting Projects similar to subtasks.

2

Hi @Jcart,

A couple of questions to better understand:

  • Could you give an example of a use case?
  • Are you talking about portfolio rules only? Or also project rules?
3

Hi @Jan-Rienk -
Yes, of course. We use projects to track the development of new products in our line’s portfolio. It would be great if we could use the status update feature to track/log progress but apply one update to multiple projects since they are related (i.e. Shirt - Small, Shirt - Medium, and Shirt - Large).

In this example, we need to keep them separate into actual projects to track tasks and data related to each individual item (in reality we are developing products much more complicated than shirts :slight_smile: ).

Further, it would be huge if we could select which fields should be linked across a family/group of projects to push changes from the posted status updates.

I hope that makes sense from the example use case I described.

Thank you,

4

Aha, I think I understand better now.

I have a couple suggestions for workarounds with current functionality:

1. Layer portfolio’s

Taking the T-shirt example it would be something like this:

Clothing portfolio
    - T-shirt portfolio
        - T-shirt Small project
        - T-shirt Medium project
        - T-shirt Large project
    - Pants portfolio
        - etc...

You could then add updates that apply to a group of clothing to the group that houses those.

Note: You will lose timeline functionality as soon as you add a portfolio to a portfolio. If this is a dealbreaker you could also use a separate portfolio that only houses the projects for that purpose.

  1. Merge projects

If a status update is the same for all projects, there might also be an argument to merge the projects.

You can differentiate which task applies to which variant using a custom field. Multi-select seems most logical, as you can then also have tasks that apply to all variants.

You can use different tabs to filter for tasks related to one type only.

More info on designing tabs here: 🪄 Design magical tabs with group, sort, and filter!

Dashboards can be filtered to include only tasks with certain custom field values.

3. Use a message.

A status update only can be added to one project at a time - which makes sense to me - but a message can be sent to multiple projects. If it is about the message rather than the status this might be a solution.

None of these seem a perfect solution for what you’re asking, but I’m hoping you find one that is a step in the right direction for you. :slight_smile:

5

Thank you so much for this info on workarounds. Unfortunately, none of these suggestions can work for different reasons. I’ve tried them all. Again, I do really appreciate the time and attention.

Ideally, the ability to link projects (and customize the level to which fields are linked) would add a ton of added functionality. Especially with applying a templated status update to multiple projects, the gains would be exponential.

I understand there are workarounds and see them also having their use in certain applications. Thank you again for your comments here.

1 Like
6

Maybe @Phil_Seeman ‘s Flowsana has options to solve this?

7

No, Flowsana doesn’t currently have any automations related to projects/portfolios, just tasks.