How do I create follow ups for me so I know things are getting done?

I am director of operations for the team and I have tasks listed for myself to assign tasks to team members that are in projects, but unless they email me back within the conversation I have no reminder for me to follow up. At the moment I do need to “babysit” team members more than I would like, but how do I create a simple prompt to myself to follow up? Do I have to create a whole new task in My Tasks?

Hi @Chris_Winsey to better understand your case - does your team also operate out of ASANA? Because if they do, then perhaps instead of them emailing you, then can comment on the task itself and you will be notified once they add their comments. If they do not work from the platform, and only you have the visibility of the tasks and the due dates, then you assigning the tasks to yourself with the due date will make the tasks appear on your ‘My Task’ view.
Sorry if I am completely of mark, but if you shed some more light, I might be able to suggest few options.

1 Like

Thanks Rashad. Maybe I didn’t explain it as well as I thought :slight_smile: I appreciate you answering. So my team is not strong Asana users …YET :slight_smile: I am integrating it and as I mentioned, yes they can reply within the task as a prompt for me, but that doesn’t always happen. So here is a “for instance.” I have a one-off task for myself to assign a task to a team member within a project. So I do assign it and then if I mark it complete I never see it again UNLESS they respond in the task conversation. The only way I can think to follow up is to have to review all tasks I have assigned. There is no follow-up prompt that I know of so that once marked “complete” it is as if there is nothing more to do. What then happens is the team member would get the email from Asana about the task with my comments. But if it says “marked complete” on my end it is as if it goes into an abyss. Am I making sense LOL :slight_smile: So as I said the only way I can think of to follow up is to review the whole project and/or any tasks I’ve assigned to my various team members during time I set aside just for that. Then I can review and see if the team responded or acted on th item and if not, then to remind them by putting the link to the task in slack. Seems so cumbersome but I’m still in the phase of integrating these systems to become an efficient team.

1 Like

Ah, now I understand @Chris_Winsey I believe there are few things you I can do. The stage you are at now with your team is normal. To increase their usability of the platform, I would suggest making the tool the centre of their work. Here are few thoughts:

  1. I would not recommend you creating follow up tasks for yourself to check on their work.
  2. You can create reports (advanced searches) of each individual and save it to your favourites. This way you can tap into each report on weekly or any timely manner you want to check - these reports can include complete and incomplete tasks
  3. Each meeting you have with your team, pull the report / the project over all and make it the centre of the conversation.

Now to ensure they actually do the work on the task - what I suggest is consider changing how you use task. Create the task with the overall activity and give it a due date that is at the end of their work. Assign the task to your team member with that due date. If you require several steps for them to achieve you can:
A) create subtasks and ask them to complete each sub task and add a comment for your review
B) if you have access to custom fields option, create a custom field with drop down options for the project status. You can then create rules that every time a stage is changed, you will be notified of the change and can access the task

I how the above 2 options help, but above all, make sure you pull out the report on their work and all their tasks in your discussion. This will bring all their efforts to the front.

Does the above make sense?

2 Likes