Goal Status Update Template(?)

English Forum Asana In Practice
1

Hi all!

I’m wondering how you all are using goals - this is the first year we’re really pursuing buy-in from teams to use Asana Goals and while I love it - some folks are having a harder time adjusting. One of the main issues we’re running into is how we are getting status updates. Aside from us wanting longer FY times (we have 5-year goals), there are also a few key questions we’d like to include but there’s no way for us to make an edit to the status updates (we ideally could change or add to the Summary, Accomplished, Blocked, Next Steps), while we could technically add to the description in the goal template - that description isn’t shown during the update process (or at least I’m not seeing it).

Other members are having a hard time with adding KPI’s and metrics to the goals as a sub-goal, they believe we should have a separate project with all of them outlined, which I think might be creating more work for members - how do you all workaround this? Have you ran into leadership wanting specific dashboard or projects to show work? There’s specific executive KPI’s/Metrics they want to look at and right now it looks like we’ll double the work by adding some on excel or an Asana project (I’m trying my best to advise against it) vs just adding to Asana Goals as a sub-goal.

Looking forward to hear how you all work on goals!

2

I hear you. Getting folks to adopt Goals and report consistently can be tough at first.

  1. Status update template questions: not customizable today. Workarounds I use

    • Put your preferred prompts in the goal description and have owners copy-paste into the status. Some teams keep a “Status outline” snippet they reuse.
    • Create a lightweight reminder task that recurs on your cadence. Put the exact questions in that task’s description and link to the goal. Owners open the task, copy answers into the goal status, complete the task.
    • Use bolded headers in the status itself like Summary, Accomplished, Blocked, Next steps so everyone follows the same flow.

  2. 5-year horizons

    • Make a top-level 5-year company goal, then add yearly child goals like FY26, FY27. Do status updates on the yearly ones. Progress rolls up, and updates stay focused and actionable.

  3. KPIs and metrics

    • If the KPI is a number you track directly, create a child goal per KPI with a number or percent progress type. Update that metric and let the parent roll up.
    • If the KPI is driven by work in projects, set the goal’s progress source to a project or milestone so updates flow automatically. This avoids re-entering data in both a project and the goal.
    • If leadership wants a single KPI catalog, a “KPI tracker” project can exist only as a data source. Each row feeds a child goal. Skip Excel unless there is a strong reason outside Asana.

  4. Exec visibility without duplication

    • Build Reporting dashboards from the same projects and goals you already use. Save a leadership dashboard with the KPI charts they care about. Same data, many views, no double entry.

If customizing the status fields would really help, please add your vote here and share your use case. I’ve passed this on to our team too: https://forum.asana.com/c/forum-en/product-feedback/20