Can someone share what the benefits are of this new UI for editing multiple tasks within a project when you select more than one task? And is there an option somewhere to disable this new feature?
Before when I selected multiple tasks, I could see the “Details” section of the task, and then in one place I could see all associated projects, tags, and fields. I needed that if I needed to change field info for a bunch of tasks, without having to clog up the columns of the main project page, turning it into a huge spreadsheet. It was super easy to batch change a bunch of associated metadata.
Now it just shows this thing at the bottom with only a couple of options, like copying the task URLs and changing the projects:
If I want to change associated fields now, I have to first ensure that all of the columns are selected to show up so I can change them in the “main” project panel. This assumes that we have all of the field columns set to display within each project:
(This is just an example. We have some projects with 5-10 more fields. If we add all of those columns it gets incredibly cluttered, and Asana just starts to feel like Excel)
Lots of our projects have tasks associated with several other projects, tags, and fields. We want the option for a bunch of metadata to be associated with our tasks, but not be forced to have all of the field columns showing up in our projects at all times as the only way to edit them.
I really hope I’m wrong about this somewhere. Please let me know if there’s a way around this. If not, please revert it or give us an option to multiple-edit tasks the old way. This would be a huge setback in our Asana workflow. Also I’m happy to discuss this by email or phone with an Asana rep.
My entire process has been completely destroyed by the way the expandable subtasks have been implemented.
I theory I do like the idea to be able to expand the task to see the associated subtasks, that part is totally fine. However, for some reason now all my custom fields associated with the parent task are now also showing up in my subtask.
This ruins my entire process as I do not want to see those custom fields in the subtask.
Up until now custom fields were tied to the project the task was in. This has now changed and this is an absolute disaster for our process and a showstopper for using Asana.
Please revert until this confusing situation is fixed!
Thanks!
I think around 2 years ago they made a big change to the calendar view, but reverted it within a week because of a ton of negative feedback. Fingers crossed we’ve got a similar scenario here.
Agreed, this is a real problematic “new feature” that breaks multiple components of our workflow while offering (as far as I can tell) no new benefits at all.
I posted a reply to their “feature announcement” already here as well, but definitely voted for this too
I haven’t encountered issues with custom fields being inherited by subtasks, but that could mess things too.
Changing such things should be done in a much more “cautious/flexible” way. Changing such a behaviour is dangerous, because of Asana’s best strength: flexibility.
You build a product that is very flexible, thus powerful, because it can be adapted to any workflow/usage. But with such power comes great responsibility, especially when changing the core behaviour like what was done here.
You can’t just dictate that everybody uses the new way when so many workflows/teams depend on it, you must foresee the usage that’s done on your platform and avoid to fall in such critical situations.
This change serves no greater good, as far as anybody can tell. And even if it does server a higher purpose for some future update, it clearly break too much the “core” behaviour of Asana to be forced as-it.
I strongly suggest you rollback this change ASAP, and work on a more polished version that actually helps people, if this change is important for your roadmap. I believe you will need to allow people to choose between the two ways:
The “old” one, where subtasks don’t inherit from the project’s custom fields
The “new” one, where they do
And the issue isn’t just about the subtasks inheriting custom fields, it’s also with multi-select/bulk operations, which have suffered from this update too.
Before, when selecting multiple tasks, we could do more. Now, we get this:
I can’t set tags, I can’t set an assignee, I can’t set a due date… And those are the 3 things I need the more when doing “bulk” changes.
I think this update should be rolled-back until it’s improved, so that we don’t suffer from a loss of capabilities. It’s a very bad UX, and lots of time wasted for no good reason.
Also, I wonder why the change, what’s this new UI is supposed to do that the old one didn’t?
There’s an existing Product Feedback thread on this topic - I suggest you add your vote there (and @Marie or @Natalia might merge this post in):
Also:
You can do all of those things as long as the field you want to update is displayed as a column in the task list. If it is, you can change the value in any one of the selected tasks and the change will be made to all selected tasks.
I have the same issue with the new setup, Selecting Mutitasks and amending used to be much more powerful. In particular since i don’t have all the fields listed as columns
OMG please fix… Asana has brutalized me over the years making me do things one-by-one manually, that should be “multi-select!”
Examples:
Adding users to teams
Adding multiple custom fields to 1 project
Adding 1 or more custom fields to multiple projects
Adding projects to portfolios (I tested this when it was first released, but we didn’t upgrade to business, so I don’t know if it’s changed)
Adding custom fields to new projects (I should be able to add default fields to the team, and then any project created under that team inherits those custom fields)
Anyway, now after years of having multi-select functionality in the task list and task pane, I can now only adjust the custom field ONE TASK AT A TIME! Brutal! Please fix.
I don’t mind that new popup task thing, but I will say it does seem like it creates a short delay every time I try and click on multiple tasks. Just add the ability to alter custom fields in this popup thingy, and it should be fine.
I am trying to rationalize this concept as well. I am not sure if it was done with a mobile mindset… Regardless, it has made my process (in desktop) very cumbersome especially when I’m trying to compare tasks, or when i’m duplicating tasks and want to do multiple changes at once. additionally the new UI doesn’t take into consideration any custom fields that I have added in my process. Please fix. I am usually very open to improvements/updates, this one though seems to break processes than making them easier/faster…
As far as I remember, not long ago we can select multiple tasks and add them a tag to all of them (multiple select → tab +T → type tag name). Today I can’t do that anymore . It was part of the last update or it was my imagination that the feature was available at some point in the past?
@Nicolas_Fischer here is some workaround for this topic that works for multiple tags adding:
select multiple task on the list view with the tags field activated, then I press tab until the cursor reach the tags column, once there, I press enter to edit the tags attribute and the input appears; at that point all the tags cells of the selected task are now highlighted; I type in the tag that I want to add and press enter. Result: all selected task now have the tag added and my hands never left my keyboard.
hope this could be helpful for someone else.
cheers
Welcome to the Forum @anon43119677 and thank you for sharing your workaround! It is super helpful!
As you have very well explained, it is possible to add tags to multiple tasks selected as long as the tag field is activated. If it’s OK with you I’m merging this thread with the one @Nicolas_Fischer have mentioned: Allow to open task details when multi-selecting tasks to consolidate feedback.
It seems like this doesn’t reliably work for me. Sometimes the old edit options show up, sometimes they don’t. For example when I have a mix of open/done tasks selected.
In addition to all the issues above we also now have a problem with removal
remove multiple task from a project at the same time - if it is just one project you cannot remove them from it, you need to open one by one
I like the UX of how to manage multiple tasks, but definetly dislike the functionality. Recently all new changes are diminishing the capability of the user, rather than increasing it.
. It was part of the last update or it was my imagination that the feature was available at some point in the past?
and my hands never left my keyboard.
and thank you for sharing your workaround! It is super helpful!