Filtering global Reporting charts using project custom fields

I’ve been trying to build a Dashboard in the Reporting feature to report on a private Portfolio which contains several projects built using the same custom fields (single select, multiple select, numbers, text, etc); but I can’t see any of custom fields in the “Add filter” > “Custom field” dropdown unless I only report on a single project.

Doing my best to explain here:

  • Project A & B are both private projects which include a single-select in-project-created custom field called “CustomField1”.
  • Project A & B are part of the portfolio “Portfolio1”.
  • If I create a dashboard in the Reporting tool and select Include tasks from “Portfolio1”. I can only filter by Organization wide custom fields which are part of my company and not by the “CustomField1” which lives inside projects A & B (or any in-project-created custom field).
  • If I create a dashboard in the Reporting tool and select Include tasks from “Project A”. I then can filter using the custom field “CustomField1”. However, if I then include tasks from “Project B” also, the “CustomField1” information is only displayed for “Project A” in the chart.

It seems Portfolio based charts can only filter by Organization wide custom fields even if all the projects inside the portfolio have the same in-project-created custom fields. I can’t make my custom in-project fields org. wide as there are already existing org. wide filters with the same name but including different options; and naming the field “CustomField1TeamABC” is not a scalable solution for a multiple-100K employees company (plus the large name is not easy to display in List view without very wide columns).

Is there a solution or workaround to this? Is this an issue with how several projects are created by duplicating an original project vs creating new projects with the same name custom fields?

1 Like

@Jeffrey_Mena_Valverd I am trying to do exactly what you describe above but cannot find a way. May I ask, have you found one meanwhile?

I sfound by speaking to Asana Support that there is no way to do it unfortunately. You are limited to use company-wide fields that have been added to the library. So for us means we have 100 “Status” fields like: “status (team X)”, “status (team Y)”, etc.

@Jeffrey_Mena_Valverd thank you for the speedy response. Looks like we then also need to go this route.

Hi @Jeffrey_Mena_Valverd , @anon70666838 ,

I appreciate your frustration. Setting the org-wide custom fields correctly in the field library is one of the first steps I take when setting ‘conventions’ with my clients who I consult and support to set up their Asana correctly from the get go. But I also run into cases like yours that require a good cleanup and consolidation of their numerous custom fields.

You could start by using this handy tool by iDO that lists all your custom fields to see the scope of your problem. Feel free to DM me if you would like to dig deeper together and see how we can fix this!