I am currently attempting to create a portfolio that will be a overview of all the work we are currently completing tasks on. Right now the set up we have is 2 portfolios whose projects are also being shared into the 3rd portfolio that is the overview. However, we have to update the statuses manually in both the portfolios and the overview. I am wondering if there is some sort of automation that can update the status all around so that we don’t have to update statuses in one place and then in another.
Also if there is a workaround this and I need to create something different to have that visibility, I am all ears! Just trying to create something that with one quick look you can see what part of the workflow something is in.
When you say ‘updating the statuses’, I assume you are not referring to the native ‘Status’ column of the Portfolio, because that updates the same for wherever the project is added to any portfolio. Unless you are not adding the same project to both portfolios.
I assume you might be using your own ‘Status’ custom field…? (a screenshot would help confirm this)
If that’s the case, you need make sure that your ‘Status’ custom field is added to your custom field library, and the same one is added to each of your portfolios.
In addition to @Richard_Sather’s good answer which should solve your problem, another way to see what phase a project is in is to use Milestones in the projects and convert the portfolio Progress column from showing Task progress to showing Milestones and Save for everyone.
Each milestone appears as a green (completed), grey (upcoming), or red (overdue) dot which you can hover to see details. At a glance you can see how far along projects are, and since these Milestones appear in the projects’ tasks list, they can be marked complete as part of the normal workflow and you may not need to periodically set a status field all.
So I have a portfolio called a POD which has projects in it. In the main screen of the Pod you can see that it has status updates (screenshot 1) as I move my assets from one step to the next. I want to add statuses within the project, that will automatically update the statuses on the POD main page without me having to go in and manually do it in the main page. The statuses from the POD also feed the statuses in another portolio (see screenshot 3) those automatically update based on what is marked in the POD.
I am wondering if I can update statuses within my project that will automatically update statuses all around in the portfolios so that there is less of a chance of a mistake happening and having to double update statuses.
Just to add, in case you use Asana’s native Status updates, you will also find the custom fields that you’ve added to your portfolio, also in the Status update editor. From the ‘Set status’ dropdown within your project, select one of Asana’s status’…
…and then in the status editor you can enable which fields will show up in your status report, while also having the ability to update them. So when the status update is posted, these values will also reflect in all the Portfolios that this project is in (as long as these custom fields are added to the library).
If you don’t have the ‘Set status’ dropdown, you can also access it from the ‘Overview’ tab, then look for the ‘What’s the status?’ section in the top right area.
A note to anyone reading this; all the above is for Asana Business and Enterprise.
