Archive a Section in a Project

When you mark a Section task complete currently, the tasks that were below it lose their reference to the section (whether they are marked Complete or not).

It would be ideal to be able to remove completed Sections from view in a Project, without losing the link between the Section and the Tasks that were in it.

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Yes, I was thinking of exact the same issue right now. Would be great to archive Sections, so that they are out view if completed.

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@Marie, do you have any thoughts on this post?

I noticed today that completed tasks are not assigned to the first completed section that is above it in the List view. Instead, completed tasks are assigned to the first incomplete section that is above it in the List view.

Here’s the workflow I use.

  1. Create a new section for new thing I am working on.
  2. Add tasks to that new section.
  3. Complete the tasks within that section.
  4. Complete the section when I have completed all the tasks.

After doing that, I expect to look at All Tasks in the List view and see all the tasks that were assigned to that new section. Granted, the tasks are still directly below the new section but, if there is an incomplete section above the new section, the tasks are assigned to that incomplete section, even though the tasks are complete and the new section is the first one above it in the List view.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

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Hi @Will_Reade,

We’re currently doing quite a lot of work on Sections (You can learn more about it in Sections are dead! Long live sections!). From what I understand your account is still under the old “data-model”. Soon we will transition your account to our new data-model, which includes more powerful sections. Among other things, these new Sections are collapsible and can be moved around along with all their tasks. I can’t seem to reproduce the issue you’re describing with the new sections, so this issue should be solved as soon as you get access to the new data model( within the next couple of weeks!) :slight_smile:

@Marie, thanks for sharing that information. We use the new way of creating sections, so I’m guessing that is separate from the new data model. We will watch for the other features over the next coupe of weeks. Thanks!

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This is a request to add the feature to Sections functionality. Currently you can rename or delete a section, but archiving it is not an option. With the update, there’s no way to hide the section without deleting it, which requires deleting all the tasks that were in it. I would like a way to archive sections, just like projects.

Thanks!

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Hi @Clare_Freeman can’t access my desktop at the moment but on the mobile you can complete a Section like a normal task, would that be an option? It won’t complete any tasks still in that section.

Jason.

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Hi @Clare_Freeman and thanks welcome for taking the time to share your feedback with us!

I don’t believe this is in our near term plans, but this is definitely something we’ll keep in mind for future Section updates.

@Jason_Woods, this was possible in the past, but not with the new Sections :wink:

@Marie - Maby if you could save the list layout with a closed drop down section…?

@JohanW, I think this would be a great alternative or complement to the “archive project section” feature we’re discussing here. Feel free to create another #productfeedback thread to allow other community members to vote for your idea!

Hi all,

Quick update that I thought you might find useful: we’re rolling out an update allowing you to delete Columns/Sections even when they contain tasks, so you don’t have to empty your column/Section before you can delete it. I don’t have an update yet about an option to “archive” columns, but I’ll keep you posted here as soon as I do!

Please note that we’re rolling this update gradually, as of today it is available to 20% of our customers, and we’re to roll it out to everyone within the next couple of days; so if you’re not seeing this option in your account just yet, don’t worry it will soon be available to you!

Let me know if you have any questions! Have all a great day :slight_smile:

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any update on “saved closed sections” @Marie?

Not at the moment @JohanW, but I’m keeping a close eye on it and will update you as soon as I have an update!

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So I’m on the new view which feels cluttered but I’m getting used to it, and I’ve noticed:

I can’t check mark sections as complete, so I have a bunch of things I don’t need to see on my screen. Collapsable is nice and all, but once everything is completed I want it archived.

I can’t access sections the way I used to, so all of my description text and comments appear to be missing… especially annoying since we had some back and forth discussion on strategy last week that I cannot seem to find. — Any help finding this??

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Hi @Nicole_Boucher,

You can learn more about Sections and why they don’t contain data anymore in this article: Using Asana List Layout | Product Guide • Asana Product Guide
Note that is your Section previously contained some data, we created a task right below your Section, with the same title, this task will contain all the metadata that your old Section used to contain, so you shouldn’t be loosing any data.

Hope this helps!

I have the new delete section option, but the warning saying it will delete previously contained completed tasks is a bit frightening (and not really what I want). The official way is to move completed tasks elsewhere first, correct?

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Over two weeks ago I wrote about the loss of functionality to complete a section and its tasks and maintain that historical association between section and tasks. It relates to this thread. Also, I just updated that post to 1) make it more clear, and 2) add a workaround (extra work). Here’s the content of that post:

Background

The new sections behavior update (Lists/Boards) rolling out now breaks many List workflows that rely on easily completing no-longer-needed sections.

This is because a section can’t be completed, only deleted, and not if it has any tasks within it (even only completed tasks). Usually one wants to keep completed tasks around for history, not delete them. And one doesn’t want to lose their membership in the section which provides context, historically, so moving to no section is not helpful either.

The only option I’m aware of with sections now is just to shove them down at the bottom of your project so they’re as out of the way as possible. They could be preceded by an additional section called “IGNORE EVERYTHING BELOW” which might help some, but it’s all ugly and undesirable.

A workaround is not to use sections. I often use a custom field instead, which in many cases is better than a section because you can sort/group by it, but for many of these workflows, adding custom field options (the equivalent of adding a section) is too painful, or otherwise a custom field is not a good substitute.

Another (painful) workaround in order to replicate the removed functionality of maintaining the association of completed tasks to the section they belong to is to:

  1. Create a new project called “<Project name> - Completed”,
  2. Create a section of the same name as the one you’re about to delete,
  3. Change the project association for all of this section’s tasks from “<Project name> v <Section>” to “<Project name> - Completed v <Section>” thus moving these tasks to a separate completed/archive project,
  4. Delete the section from “<Project name>”.

This forces you to have two projects where you used to only have one, but allows you to maintain the section membership for completed tasks/sections that once could be done in a single project. (This is an unfortunate example of Asana creating work about work, I’m afraid.)


And another similar report by someone else:

And another:

I’d guess this is breaking a lot of workflows.

Thanks,

Larry

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I agree with the previous posts… We need a way to archive sections. I’m not looking to delete all of the tasks, as I still might need to search them. It’s frustrating to not be able to get rid of a section when everything in it is complete. :grimacing:

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Hello all, I share everyone’s frustration here and wanted to share a interim hack while this bubbles to the top of the DEV list.

If you’ve been using Sections primarily to break up the Tasks in a list view visually (and don’t necessarily need them ‘related’ to a Section), you can use Milestones in lieu of a Section to accomplish the same effect.

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This change has been a bit of a nightmare. I can now occasionally delete a section, but the ability to delete seems to come and go. There’s no easy way to see if section contains completed tasks, As my project has thousands of incomplete tasks (used over a long time) finding and deleting them to delete a section is nearly impossible. One way we’ve been using sections, is to create one for every day and then mark items complete. Now it’s really difficult to remove the days, once that day has passed. Also, I don’t necessarily want to delete tasks that existed under those days in case I need to find them later. I agree there needs to be a way to archive sections (Or even allow dragging a section with or without it’s tasks to another project, so they can manually be archved)

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