++ on my tasks being sticky
Would be great if Asana could share a pop up saying there’s a new test for XYZ
Side bar - Portfolio/Project nested view will be very useful, current interface is clumsy
Welcome, @krishna_kumar_reddy,
I’ve merged your post into an existing topic discussing the new sidebar. If this is not the sidebar that you’re referring to, reply and I’ll adjust.
Thanks,
Larry
Workflow Mode
- I like that there’s a central and more visible location for rules, custom fields, bundles, project templates, and forms. Especially custom fields and rules. Great improvement.
Work Mode
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I constantly switch between projects across teams. I didn’t like it awhile back when the Teams sides stopped being a toggle and became a flyout menu. Having them in two separate screens adds even more friction.
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I could just develop a habit of using teams to navigate projects, and this wouldn’t be the end of the world.
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Worst case scenario, we could just make a universal team that every project is shared with. That’s already what we do with tasks to get them all in one place.
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I still view Teams as more or less “Folders” for Project objects; so it still seems a little odd to not have them in the same area.
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That said, I can understand having them in the Company mode screen. Perhaps there’s a world where they can exist in both tabs.
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Projects and portfolios exist within a toggle called Work, that lives within a tab (Mode) called Work. It’s better than having Projects and Portfolios both under a toggle called Projects, though. You could solve this by splitting Portfolios and Projects up again into two separate toggles within the Work mode screen.
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I currently add prefix symbols in front of project and portfolio names and sort alphabetically to create a secondary level of pseudo-grouping within the Work toggle since we can’t manually control the order of things over there. It was a blast trying to figure out the sorting logic you folks are using for Unicode symbols, though.
Company Mode
- Things seem rather sparse in the Company mode screen. Makes me curious what you folks are planning to add later….
- I’d expect to see Goals (as well as keeping Goals in the Plan mode screen also). e.g., Company Goals, the Strategy view, Mission, etc.
Plan Mode
- Makes sense to me. I wonder if anything related to time might get added here in the future since Reporting is here also.
Starred Mode
- I’d like to see a Starred (Favorites) mode over there also. Where users can organize things in a mode that works best for them. That way users can spend more time on work instead of working on work.
- The favorites list needs to be in more than one mode anyway. Favorites can contain saved searches also (I’d love if saved searches got their own toggle back again too). Saved searches are not the same thing as a starred project, team, portfolio, etc.
Use of Space
- I see many people don’t like how much space it takes up on the sidebar and I get where they’re coming from.
- Making it collapsible on its own independently of the navigation sidebar seems unnecessary. You could just reduce the padding and give folks back more of their real estate.
- I can imagine a lot more people hitting that shortcut to collapse their whole sidebar now.
- All that said, I’m fine with it. I already modify the UI with a ton of custom CSS and JS as it is. But I can definitely empathize with all the folks that’ve voiced their frustration.
Wishful General Purpose Solution
- A majority of my wishes above will be solved if the command palette comes back on the radar and gets implemented. The fewer things I have to click to get where I want to go or do what I want to do, the better.
2 Likes
I appreciate the info, but honestly your product team needs to look at the outstanding feature request list and tackle those first. No one on the planet asked your product to de-emphasize teams and projects in your app navigation, and there was no warning or ability to opt out of this “test” - it’s Asana decisions like this that make your product less and less viable as an enterprise solution.
2 Likes
Looking at some of the negative feedback against modes, ironically maybe the best solution would be to finally add a “Beta Mode” as an easy toggle on/off?
When Asana enables an early Beta for a user they’re just toggling the feature on their backend. Why not give users the ability to toggle that on and off? That allows users that do not want to be part of an A/B to opt out while Asana does it’s own essential dev and A/B experimenting.
The whole idea of modes is different users have different needs in Asana. As a workflow designer, I need tools and views that I don’t actually need as a normal user. A “Beta Mode” would allow people to continue to work in Asana in the mode they need, while allowing Asana to continue to develop.
Modes does have so much potential. A Beta mode would allow Asana to keep figuring it out while allowing work to go on as usual.
WISHLIST
Make the “Modes” something users can hide or show according to their needs. Then let users add to their needs. Super Admins especially need quick access to MORE modes like:
- Work Access Mode – great existing tool finally gets a good home – easy access for super admins that need to do regular clean up. Most people don’t need to know that even exists.
- Sand Box Mode – great existing tool finally gets a good home – easy reset if you break the sandbox, another great power user tool set most people don’t need to see.
- Beta Mode – easy toggle on off if something is currently broken / buggy. Even power users have the need to turn the beta stuff off sometimes.
- Custom Modes – kind of like project or portfolio views, allow users to make their own modes. For myself I’d set up a “Sales Mode” for when I’m doing all things sales related. I want my sales project, goals, etc as it’s own “Home” style view to easy operate out of, while easily allowing a jump over to the sales calls calendar etc. Huge bonus if we can then copy those “Modes” to other users.
- User Access Mode – like an easy “log in as another user” to help them fix their own issues or set things up, kind of like screen share or sitting down together at their own computer. But if this was a real mode, then the task or project activity trail could say “Tanner acting as Amanda” or whatever.. So that we know it was me messing with their stuff. Vs if I just sit at their desk I have no idea if I did something or if they did.
The more you use Asana, the more Modes makes sense. But default hiding then allowing users to add Modes as they grow into Asana.. it just makes an easy transition for everyone.
3 Likes
I’ve been using this for about a week now. Its cumbersome and an inefficient use of space.
2 Likes
Lots of a great feedback in this channel. While I’m not part of this test group, I’ve been following the feedback closely. If this change is implemented, it will require significant adjustments for both myself and my team in Asana.
YES. My kingdom for a proactive comm!!
Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to share feedback on this topic — we really appreciate it. We’re closely monitoring this thread and will keep you updated as the experiment progresses.
We’ve heard your thoughts on how this update was communicated and your suggestions for testing features before rollout. As part of the Asana Ambassador program, we shared an opportunity back in July to join our beta program and provide early feedback on the new navigation. Then published this post as soon as we started rolling out the update to give you a heads up. We know how valuable your input is, and we plan to continue offering more opportunities like this so you can get early access and share your insights ahead of time.
We’re also exploring new ways for admins to test upcoming features in sandbox environments before they’re released. We will make sure to share more information with the community as soon as we get closer to launch.
Let us know if you have any other questions or feedback!
4 Likes
Forgive me for not reading all the comments in this thread before posting my opinion to the redesign. But here it is:
I like how Asana keeps improving and aiming to make the UI easier to use. But I think this redesign still needs some work…
The unused empty space in the new nav sidebar (Work/Planning/Workflow/Company) is a waste of precious real estate and limits the width of the actual sidebar and hence displays even less of the names of the projects (or other elements).
The connection between selecting a tab in the new navigation sidebar and what appears in the second sidebar on the right is unclear. There is no visual cue showing that choosing a tab (Work, Planning, Workflow, Company) only affects the elements displayed in the second sidebar below “Home” and “Inbox.”
The one problem I have with it is that this update - combined with the unskippable “Open in the Asana app” banner - makes using Asana on iPad more and more frustrating.
The main reason is that both the Safari address bar and that banner seem to push the create and profile buttons in the bottom left corner off the screen. 
I realise that I’m likely an edge case in the sense that there are probably not many people both using Asana in Safari on iPad, and needing to switch between instances so often.
But for those who are using it on iPad (in Safari because iPad app can’t hold a candle to the web version) I guess it will trigger confusion because at first glance it looks like both the profile button and create button have just disappeared. And looking for the profile button just outside the opposite corner of the screen to where it used to be is probably not the first place you’ll look.
For the rest it seems like a step forward at first glance, but I would need some experience in one of the instances I am not a guest to to give some extended feedback.
Sorry, but the addition of a second sidebar is clunky and unnecessary clutter. I don’t like this new interface and I want to revert. Plus you rolled it out to just one of my accounts (a personal free account i use for just tracking home tasks) but not my paid company account where the bells and whistles might be more useful to others in my org. Now my asana accounts look completely different from each other. This is the second time you’ve pushed me into a test group for large layout changes. Extremely dissatisfied. Last time I had to create a new account to get out of the test group. Please stop experimenting on users without consent. Unsure if it’s related but the widget on my phone stopped being able to display tasks from this account around the same time of the rollout, but the account with the previous layout works fine.
Just based on my experience and how our team uses Asana, this redesign ultimately doesn’t improve anything for us. I can see the benefits for some but to take up precious workspace with a taskbar that runs the height of the left side is a waste of space, as others have mentioned. Rather than forcing this to be the norm for users, this could be much better served as a UI option that can be toggled on/off based on the user simply because there are users for which this doesn’t serve a function.