One of the main reasons I signed up and paid for Asana was for the custom templates. After paying for the Premium account, I find out I can’t save a project as a template and easily create a new one when needed. I have to simply create the project template, and then copy it?
Is this correct? If so, when will I have the ability of just click the “Orange + Sign”, selecting “Project” and going to my own personal saved templates?
I tried talking with Templana and they wanted $5/month to create one for me but I already have it created.
Did anyone else have this issue? How did you fix it besides the copy project situation?
Any and all feed back would be greatly appreciated.
Is it is any comfort when they announced Templates they indicated they are moving towards allowing users to create their own Templates. May not help you now but will be a great feature when it is launched.
Hi @Andrew.Volk ! Right now I think your best bet is to copy projects and keep a template library. You could keep a template library with links to template projects and template tasks for that matter. At a high level, I suggest you start by creating a project called Template Library. Favorite the project by clicking the star next to the title. When you favorite the project it will appear at the bottom of your left side bar and you can move it to the top of your side bar for easy access.
Now for the details of the project.
Project Template Section:
You could start by creating a section called Project Templates. Create a section by putting a colon ( after the title (ex. Project Templates: ).
If you were to keep a “Project Template” section, each task would link to a project template.
To create each project template, you’ll click the orange + button and click project. I suggest you create a naming convention for template projects such as ending the title with TEMPLATE (ex. Marketing Calendar TEMPLATE).
After you’ve created a template project, just copy the url and paste it into the description of the corresponding task in the template library.
When you need to access template projects in this list, just click into each task, click the link in the description that takes you to the template project, copy the project, and rename it as needed.
@Alexis Do you think there would be any benefit to creating a Team called Project Templates and keeping various templates in them. You could then use the copy Project and then use the work around you gave us before is to use multi-select, add them to the new Team and Project you want them in. Then use multi-select to delete the template project copy leaving it only in its new home.
@James_Carl I like that you shared this idea! This is exactly the kind of creative solution that a forum like ours can provide. I think that if the workaround you suggest makes someone feel more productive and like they can collaborate better, then more power to 'em!
@James_Carl@Alexis That’s exactly what I do, James. I create a team that houses all my template projects. Not sure what the purpose is of the multi-select you’re talking about, however.
You can just copy the template project, rename, and move it to the relevant team when needed. One of the advantages of using a team to hold templates is you can set some more security settings so not just anyone can see this team and potentially goof up your carefully-planned templates.
I also use a tag “Template Task” to any tasks that are mini-templates (using subtasks). That way I can create a Search Report to see them all in one place, no matter what project they’re in.
But hopefully Asana’s upcoming custom templates features will make all this irrelevant! B)
You can also ask us at Templana.com to create a private repository for your templates if you need to share them outside your company or just want a nice interface when creating a project from a template!
Is there a way to import a template part way into a project? or Two Templates (one before the other) into the same Project?
We currently create a new Asana Project with each new sale/order, using Templates that we’ve created for different product types.
IF we wanted to track potential customers earlier up the chain (if we started with Templana’s SALES FUNNEL template), we could re-name the project if//when it becomes a Sale… but how could we import one of our templates to start at line 20 or whatever was needed, without losing all the info we captured pre-sale?
Iron Fences need to be (1)measured, (2)welded and (3)painted… so we’ve made a different list/template than Wood Fences which need to (1b)go to our wood shop.
Customer makes first call, and we create a New Project with the Sales Funnel Template.
10 Tasks later, Customer gives go ahead and wants to order an Iron Fence.
CAN WE (after 10 tasks completed) add-in a template that’s been made for Iron Fences into this same project, without loosing everything that’s already in the Project?
My personal approach would be: create a template with the Sales Funnel, then many blank lines, then the Iron Fences tasks… When the customer chooses 1a or 1b you delete the empty tasks and irrelevant tasks. If needed, Templana can host such a project in a private repository for you, if you need to share it outside your colleagues.
@Wally_Montpetit another option for you is to create a Sales Funnel Template Project that includes a template task within it. Simply create a template task for teammates to copy when the “customer gives go ahead and wants to order an Iron Fence.” The template task can live in the project and simply be copied and then dragged and dropped to the appropriate place in your list. None of your work would ever need to be deleted.
Here’s a rough outline of how that Sales Funnel template project and corresponding template task could look in Asana:
As you can see, I put my template tasks at the top of the project, so I can copy them easily. I can copy the “Iron Fence Order” template task, then put the copy into my “Post-Sale” section. You’ll also notice that project name includes “TEMPLATE” in the title. You can of course copy the project and change the project name for each client.
Any update on when the custom templates will roll out. I am currently evaluating Tallyfy, process.st and Asana but the lack of custom templates in a Asana is huge minus
Hi Ulrik. We’re unable to say specifically if this will happen in the next 30 days, but it is scheduled to happen soon. It sounds like you’re at an important time in the decision making process. I’ll be happy to connect you with one of my colleagues who can provide more information.
Hi @Ulrik_Binzer. For what it’s worth, when I was first evaluating Asana I thought the lack of templates was a dealbreaker. I eventually realized that creating my own templates as dummy projects/tasks/subtasks was just as good, and we do it every single day. Once the custom template feature is available, I’m not even sure I’d bother changing to it at this point. Given that the feature is coming soon, though, I’d strongly encourage you to not to make a decision you’ll have to live with for a long time on the basis of a temporary issue when copying projects is a viable alternative for the interim.
I am absolutely for being able to save custom project templates in Asana as it would make my life of building out easy to use templates for my teammates so much easier. Although, I would love if we could go one step further and make template tasks, along with the ability to save those custome template tasks.
My team works with many external partners across many cities and we’ve found it easiest to create a project for that city’s partnerships, with each partner being it’s own task. And since what we do is program implementation at these partners, we then have a separate project with various program implementation task flows that we now have to manually copy and drag over to the partnerships project, and then drag into the subtask view of each partner task to show what programs that partner is implementing, as well as what tasks need to be completed for each program implementation at each partner.
It’s a convoluted workaround that would be made so much easier if someone could simply make the partner a parent task, and then whey they go to type in a sub-task, there is a window that pops up that asks if they would like to select a pre-made task template that would allow them to select the program, which would then auto-populate all of the tasks associated with that program.
after the title (ex. Project Templates: ).
