We recently switched to Asana from SmartSheet, and one of the features I’d love to see replicated is the ability to create Assignee Placeholders. The reason being is our team plans out projects weeks—sometimes months—in advanced and aren’t ready to actually assign a person to a task, but still want to see how that task is affecting our total workload.
For example, I work at a Marketing Agency and look over the total creative team. Being able to generically assign a designer to a series of tasks will help me better understand if I might need to bring in Freelancer help, or look to shift due dates in preparation of the incoming job.
Hi @Jonathan_Grabon are you using the portfolio view for workload? I would say this helps me as there is an unassigned tab and you can then see the work you have upcoming but it isn’t assigned. You can then see everyones workload alongside it.
Hi @Jonathan_Grabon ,
In addition to @Danielle-GenD 's great suggestion, what my org does is have a custom single-select field (can also use multi-select depending on how you track work) with all of our roles (design, copy, production, etc.) as options. In our project templates, we pre-set these fields so that we can gauge volume ahead of assigning to individuals.
This also makes bulk assigning work easier when the time comes, as you can filter for specific teams/roles’ tasks and select all to assign to an individual
Hi Stephen, I thought about doing something like this too. However, I haven’t found a way to target that Custom Field with the Workload Report as it only allows you to target Asana members.
Hi @Jonathan_Grabon ,
Afaik, you are correct that custom fields can’t be exposed in workload reporting. That said, what we do is use universal reporting and have charts that count incomplete tasks with due dates in certain periods with each field value (burnup charts can be good for this, as can line charts with the x-axis set to due date, y-axis set to task count, and filters for incomplete tasks and role/task owner. It’s not ideal if you have many departments/roles to manage, but it does okay if you’re looking at a limited number (maybe ~10?) of roles/teams.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll take a look at this, but off the top of my head I don’t think this will give us the view we’re looking for.
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Hello,
We’re transitioning from Trello and Google Sheets to Asana for project management. We have about 40 developers who use Azure DevOps, and we don’t want to create Asana accounts for them, as they won’t actively use Asana. Is there a way to assign tasks or track resource allocation in Asana without requiring everyone to have an account? Any suggestions or workarounds would be greatly appreciated!
Hi @Mahima_Doda, thanks for sharing your feedback! This is currently not possible but it’s considered in our roadmap. I will share more information on this thread soon! 