Hi everyone,
I’m interested to understand how others are structuring client communication workflows in Asana, particularly where communication relates to an existing task or service request.
Our current setup is:
- We have a central Service Requests project.
- We also have a project per client, with each Service Request multi-homed into the relevant client project.
- Where communication is required against a Service Request, we create a Communication subtask.
- Communication is a Custom Task Type with its own workflow/statuses.
- We use these subtasks for things such as replying to the client, requesting further information, providing a status update, or notifying them that work has been completed.
Conceptually, this works really well. The communication remains linked to the Service Request, we can assign it independently, and the Custom Task Type gives communication its own workflow.
Where I’m struggling is with custom fields.
The information we need for a Communication task is different from the information we need on the parent Service Request. As the communication subtasks sit within the same projects, we’re gradually accumulating more custom fields, many of which are irrelevant depending on whether you’re looking at the Service Request or its Communication subtask.
I’m therefore wondering whether we should introduce a separate Communications project and add all Communication tasks/subtasks to it.
However, I’m hesitant to add another project. Our Service Requests are already multi-homed, and I’m concerned that adding another project could introduce even more project/custom-field clutter and visual noise in the task pane - effectively making the problem I’m trying to solve worse.
I’d be really interested to hear how others approach this:
- Do you keep client communication as subtasks of the main task?
- Do you multi-home communication subtasks into a dedicated Communications project?
- Do you keep communication on the main task through comments/custom fields instead?
- How do you handle different custom-field requirements between the parent task and communication tasks?
- Have you found another structure that works particularly well?
I’m not necessarily looking for one specific solution - I’d really like to understand how others are modelling client communication in Asana, particularly where there can be multiple communications throughout the lifecycle of a piece of work.
Thanks for your help!