When I add a task to a project (or to multiple projects), the project assignments are not visible to people who are not on those projects. So when they view the task, they do not see what project it is assigned to.
This is frustrating behavior, because it means that the users who have visibility into the task because they are collaborators are unable to see that the task has been added to a project. I fully get that they should not be able to see the rest of the project content, or see the project in their sidebar, but I think they should at least be able to see which project the task is in.
Here’s the most common condition where it occurs: someone adds a task to my team’s incoming queue project. We assess the task, and move it to whatever project it applies to. Let’s call that Project A. The person submitting the task (or anyone else following the task) then looks at the task, but can’t see that it was added to Project A, and winds up adding a comment saying, “this task should be in Project A” and we have to reply and say “it already is.” I don’t think they should gain visibility into Project A, but rather just see that the task they have visibility on is assigned to Project A.
Don’t you think it would be risky to let people see the project title? What if you have a list of employees as tasks, and someone from HR adds one employee to the “Fired soon” project? #fake#example
Yes, it very much could be risky! Fake example, yes, but you’re right that there will indeed be cases where this is a bad idea because of how a company uses Asana in their own day-to-day, but just as equally there are cases where this is a good idea. Tags, for instance, are visible to everyone. So if I tag something with “fired soon,” that same risk is there. To me, exposing a project’s name is no more confidential than exposing the tags, which is already being done.
When you consider what the nature of a company’s projects are, the part that is usually confidential is the content and visibility into tasks, not the name of the project. When a project is highly confidential, the standard PM practice is to obfuscate the project’s name using a code name. Like Project Orion or something. With that being fairly standard, I can’t think of a legitimate reason to hide which project a task is part of, that is a universal standard across PM circles. Even if there were an option to let an organization choose whether the project name can appear across tasks would be great, as this satisfies both realms. I know that Asana isn’t big of having corporate individual settings, and instead focuses on broad features, but there are some cases where you just can’t escape the need for 50.1% of the users to want it one way and 49.9% to want it another way.
Is the Project name not shown on a Task for public and private Projects?
Does it make a difference if the Team is public or not?
If it’s a public Project in a public Team users can already see the Project name and I don’t see why they should be members of the Project to see the Project name in the Task.
If the project is private, the project assignment only appears to people who are following the task AND are members of the project it’s assigned to.
If the project is public to a team, the project assignment appears for anyone who is following the task or is part of the team.
If the task has a collaborator who is not on the project that the task is assigned to, and is not part of the team that the project is assigned to, then the collaborator cannot see that the task is assigned to a project at all. They can see, and interact with the task, and even add it to other projects, but they cannot see the project it’s assigned to that they don’t have visibility on.
That makes sense. If it’s a private Project and the user isn’t a member of the Project, they shouldn’t know the name of the Project or anything else about it that they aren’t being directly included on.
Again, that makes sense. The user can already see the Project exists and the Project name, so it should be displayed in the Task.
I think the idea of whether the name of the project should remain private is a bit subjective. If I’m allowed to follow a task, I should be allowed to see what project that task is in, even if I’m not on the project. I shouldn’t see the whole project, but seeing at least the name seems fair to me… at the very least, it should be an option for the organization to set as a global preference.
However, maybe a fair trade-off would be that if the task is assigned to a project, but I don’t have rights on the project, just having the project area say “This task is also assigned to another project” would be really helpful, as it would provide at least some kind of indicator that the task is not rogue or floating somewhere, and would ensure that task collaborators know that it is assigned somewhere.
In the scenario you were asking about, the team and the project are not public. Again, I recognize the need for keeping project contents private within an organization, but to also keep the project name and the fact that the task is assigned to it confidential as well, seems like something that should be determined by the organization. In organizations where projects are highly confidential this makes sense. But in an organization that doesn’t keep project names confidential, but doesn’t necessarily want every person to see the contents of every project, this seems like a feature that should have an option to enable “name visibility on assigned tasks” but not otherwise publicized. I think if a person is allowed to see a task that is in a project, they should be allowed to see the name of the project it’s on. Just the name.
If the Project and Team are public, there is no expectation of information privacy and nothing should be hidden, including the Project name.
If the user isn’t a member of the Project there is nothing that can be hidden, because there is nothing stopping the user from joining the Project.
If the Project is private and the user isn’t a member of the Project, there is an expectation of privacy of information, including the Project name.
If the user isn’t a member of the Project they can’t join on their own. Perhaps the Project name (i.e. Spye’s Surprise Birthday Party) is sensitive information and there is a reasonable expectation to expose the user to only the information explicitly shared with them. The contents of the Task and nothing else, including Project name.
I think Asana has done a good job here in protecting data that may need protecting. And I do mean MAY need protecting. Because it’s possible the Project name should be protected at times but not others. But if you aren’t sure if it should be protected, best to err on the side of caution and protect it. It’s difficult for me to find fault here.
I’m going from memory. But I thought there was a yellow banner at the top of a Task to indicate something like this.
I agree with everything @Vince_Mustachio wrote, though I don’t recall the yellow banner.
Perhaps the multi-homing to a private project could still be indicated with something like “Private Project” providing this indication but nothing more. That strikes me as somewhat analogous to the “Private User” that appears in a similar context for assignments.
I agree with this implementation idea, it would be nice to see something noting it is has been added to another project, when the project is private.
In our org we use 100 day plans between a manager and a direct report, everything on there may be in other projects or individual initiatives and development opportunities. It’s no one else’s business what tasks are in someone’s 100 day plan; however its good for a manager to know when their employee has queued it up. Also, with the current implementation of private projects my boss sees if an item is on my 100 day plan when a different project without obfuscating the view for anyone else.
This kind of shared holistic project helps for prioritizing work within expectations
I’m way late to this party, but we’re having a major issue with this behavior in Asana. It shows (to me) that Asana isn’t built for Project Management of repeated and very similar Projects.
For example: let’s say I’m a landscaper and create a Project for each Landscape job (customer). So I may have 10 open Projects at a time, and there could be people at our company that are not on my Team and may not even be a part of the overall Project, but they might get a random Task assigned to them. So a natural Task might be “Deliver bricks for patio” which could be assigned to a User that is NOT on the Project. But now they get a Task and have no idea what Job that relates to. It literally makes the Tasks meaningless.
I have looked to find an answer to this question. I am on the trial of Asana and our company will likely start using the platform.
There is one issue with external users: we have contractors who are in competition with each other and also working on various of our site at the same time. Opening the Project for all to see with all tasks exposed will not work. I will assign a specific task to a contractor as I need them, however, when doing this, the Project name does not appear on their side.
For instance, “Fit bathroom vanity”. This task appears on their Asana profile, but without stating which Project (or site in our case) the task is for.
A workaround is adding a Tag, but it seems to be such an obvious element to include in a task assignment.
Welcome to the Asana Community Forum @Morne_M3T
I have merged your post into an existing feedback request thread. Don’t forget to vote at the top of the thread.
Not sure what plan your Asana trial is on, however I recommend using custom fields with rules for example.
Meaning you can have a custom field drop-down and for all tasks added to the project a rule triggers to select the project name from the drop-down.
Thank you for the reply. We will work on the Business Plan. This feature is actually a game changer as to which platform we end up using because we cannot let external users see the rest of the tasks.
Another example: if I assign a task to a labourer, say, “Clean unit for viewing”, that person should not be allowed to see the part about commissions or payment timelines. However, they will need to know which unit (being the lask list) and which development (being the project).
If this information is stored in custom fields you can make it local to the project.
Meaning when creating/editing the custom field if you do not tick the box to have the custom field accessible org wide then others should not be able to see it, more info here.
Then since you are on business plan try to work with custom fields or rules.
In your case actually you can set up rules to create subtasks and in there you can use variables to be added in the name. At the moment the only variables available are these:
You can achieve further customizations with Flowsana though which might be an option in your case.
This is a fair workaround. I am now setting up a rule for each Project to complete my custom field, called “Project” to the name of the Project whenever assigning a task.
