Hi,
I want to use a project as a “checklist” in our systematic fire protection work.
The project is shown as a list with sections for different parts of a location and each section has tasks for every control point.
This way, we can use Asana on a phone when checking all control points and use fields to say if there are deviations/dangers, priority and progress.
This would be awesome but there is one problem.
We do this control 4 times per year and we save documentation for our safety work but I don’t want to create 4 projects like this every year and I cant see a good way to re-use the same project and at the same time be able to easily view the history…
Some of the points might generate work that take longer than 4 month and that would be lost if we just start a new project from a template or wipe the existing one…
I was thinking about exporting the project so save documentation and re-using the same project. Is there a way to just reset one whole field column? In this case I could reset one column to “not controlled” before the next control.
What do you think would be the best practice for me to use a project like this??
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Hi @Emanuel_Teljemo!
You pose a unique use case for Asana that I have not come across yet and I love that! The wide variety of use cases that Asana is applied to across all sort of different industries never ceases to amaze me! The deep amount of customization and features inside of the tool lend itself beautifully to any number of different uses and I love coming across new ones that I haven’t thought through yet! But I digress…
So, thinking through your use case requirements and the challenges you have brought up I think there are a few approaches you could take.
Probably the simplest approach would be to create a Project Template that is built exactly the way you describe with the needed sections and tasks. Once created to your liking, you can use the template each time you have to perform the “checklist”. The benefits of this approach is that you don’t have to recreate the project each time you need to perform the checklist (since it will consist of the same sections and tasks each time), each time you create a new project using the template it exists in Asana as its own project so you save it’s history and you can always go back and reference it, and if work is generated in the form of other tasks, those tasks can live in this project until the are completed even if that isn’t until after you’ve completed the next checklist. The cons of this approach would be that after a few years you will have a lot of projects because each time you run the checklist you will have to create a new project. This is where sorting the projects into Teams or Portfolios would be useful. You could make a seperate team or portfolio for each building and save the checklists pertaining to that building in that team or portfolio. For reference, here is a guide on how to create a Custom Project Template, how to create a team in Asana and how to create a Portfolio in Asana.
Another method you could try is using the same concept, but doing it at the task and sub-task level. Essentially you would start by creating a Project for all of your “Checklists” to live in. Inside of that project you would then create a task called something like “Systematic Fire Protection Work Checklist - Location - MM/DD/YYYY”. Inside of the task, you could create a subtask for each different part of the location. From there, you would open up each subtask and create sub-tasks for each of the tasks required for each location. Once you are happy with how the task and it’s sub-tasks, and sub-sub-tasks you can save it as a Task Template. Then, each time you need to complete the checklist you simply use the task template to create the new task and away you go. Essentially you are taking a project with sections and tasks and demoting it to a Task with Sub-tasks and Sub-sub-tasks. The advantages of this approach is you can easily track all of these checklists to completion in a single project and you are still able to use the mobile app during the performance of the work to check-off sub-tasks and tasks as they are completed and take notes. The disadvantage is that you will have to do more clicking to see any of the notes on sub-sub-tasks and I have always felt that using sub-sub-tasks isn’t a great practice and instead you should use a project with Tasks and sub-tasks if you need to be that granular. Here is a guide on how to create Task Templates in Asana.
These seem like 2 workable solutions to address your listed concerns but if you have any further questions on how to use these approaches or if there is a hole in my solution please let me know!
Cheers!
Matt
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