Our use case for Asana: In support of retail expansion, within a predictive project environment, a standardized project template that captures 13 functional sections of approx 500 tasks/sub-tasks in total per project, with a milestone section shared by all stakeholders. The goal was to front-load as much of the known tasks and details within a single project and to build a project template which would allow the cross-functional team of 25+ stakeholders to only need to adjust the task progress custom field and communicate across the project within the comments sections. As we sign a new lease, a new project is created, kicked off and then managed by all.
The concern requiring a solve: As we’ve managed through the first few projects, most of the stakeholders have had a need to add new tasks or adjust others. Currently, I’ve asked them to do so manually across all 18 active projects as well as the project template (for future projects created). The appetite for this approach is low as its time consuming and has a risk of not being comprehensive. We’ll also be reaching 35 active projects within the coming quarters.
What I’ve tried thus far: My Asana account exec seemed to think Bundles could be the solve for this. We had a call and I quickly realized he was no more versed in Bundles than I was. Suggested in the end for them to use the search feature to make manual single edits across all projects. I then attempted to add a Bundle to our project template but realized it only added duplicate Sections and Custom Fields to it and didn’t have the ability to also roll in the 500 tasks/milestones that sit below those 14 sections. The only function within Bundles related to tasks is the “task template” which asks the user to create a single task from scratch for inclusion in the Bundle. But there’s a need to be able to take all aspects of a project template and convert them into a Bundle format. Select which current sections/rules/tasks/custom fields the user wants to include. This would allow an organization to ONLY need to go into the project template that is Bundled, make their adjustments, and update all projects already in flight, as well as the template which supports subsequent projects created from it.
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Kudo’s to how you’re describing your request. This gives quite good insight to why you want this.
What I’m wondering though, is if “Allow tasks withing existing project template to be part of a bundle” is actually solving your problem, or a workable solution… I guess your request is to sync these? But what attributes of the task would you want to sync?
I fear this might be very tricky to implement.
Wouldn’t “enable adding new tasks to multiple projects through a bundle” also solve your issue?
I’m suggesting this as I think that’s a request that might have a higher chance of getting implemented as - to me - it seems more straightforward.
Thanks Jan-Rienk. I’ve since created a product feedback post to be upvoted (or not) if others agree and have a similar use case. As I understand more about Asana, it seems weighted moreso to Agile/Iterative use cases than traditional project mgt methods whereby most details are known and designed sequentially and we follow that narrative and mitigate risk as our teams complete the same tasks across multiple timelines (projects) towards delivering the same commercial standards to meet our retail customers across geographies with the same experience. I’ve been working across various platforms (reddit etc) in hopes someone may have found a solve at the user level. But all responses have been around “try multihoming” or “just use the search feature to find all of the same task, and update each manually.” The first isn’t a solve as we have various stakeholders within a project role that I assign based on the regional teams and if one construction manager marked a task complete for their site, 5 other CM’s would have their tasks updated which would be a huge risk to the portfolio. The latter suggestion is fine if you have a handful of in flight projects but i’m preparing this organization for close to 50 active projects being in flight in the coming months and manually updating that many projects isn’t anyone’s cup of tea when I went with Asana for the ease of interface for colleagues who are great at what they do within their functions but wouldn’t have time for the more wonky tools out there. (Looking at you, Smartsheets).
I’ve been thinking about this usecase, and I think I’ve found a workaround.
- First add a single select custom library field to the bundle. Let’s call it Bulk edit with a value edit
- Add a rule to the bundle that is triggered by setting this field. You can set actions for what you want to happen: Change description, change title, create task, create subtask. Then “reset” the field by clearing it.
- Do a search for a task you want to change or use as a trigger. (This should be easiest if all projects are all part of a portfolio to narrow your search.)
- Multi-select all the tasks, and using the menu at the bottom edit fields.
It might be a bit convoluted as you’d have to edit a rule for every change, but it should enable you to bulk add or modify tasks using a Bundle.
It would be a lot faster than manually modifying/adding these for 35 projects.
A second rule that is triggered on new tasks added to the project could facilitate getting it into the right section.
It’s not perfect as any dependencies would still need to be added manually, and you can’t determine the order in the section.
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I would also like this feature - I need to create a project template to be used by over 100 projects. Within the template are mutliple sections, each containing tasks BUT the sections and tasks can be added to over time, e.g. comms colleagues request a new section with 3 tasks is added to all 100 projects. So having the ability to use a Bundle to add sections and tasks to over 100 projects would be a life saver!
