Hi guys! I am hoping that someone can help me with this:
I would like to create a shopping list for my team and me. This list should be divided into diverse sections (e.g. food, stationery,…) and there should be pre-defined elements that can be selected or deselected. I do not want team members to randomly add new items because we have a limited and specified list of things that are bought by the company. The idea is that people can look at the list and select elements whenever something is missing and needs to be re-stocked. However, I do not want elements do be checked off because this might create confusion on what can still be selected, etc.
I am thinking to create a project with sections, tasks and subtasks. The functions that I’d need would be that tasks (= shopping elements) can be selected, but not checked off. Everytime, new stuff is being bought, our shopper can then de-select the tasks and everything starts again. Or maybe there are some better ideas out there?
Looking forward to creative ideas and instructions!
Thanks so much
To me, this would be 100x easier and 20x more functional in something like Google Sheets. It would be much easier to create the structured list entries via drop down, and also create various formats that readily display different views of the data - even things like, “Here are all the high-protein snacks on hand”, or “choices of gluten-free food to order” or “list of P/N & qty to upload to Amazon”. Asana is not strong in this area, IMO.
In Google Sheets, you could easily create permanent templates to automatically generate printed shopping lists for in-person shopping. Asana’s printing is quite inflexible, hard to read, and even buggy per a report I read in this forum, today.
As we‘ve made the decision not to use direct Google products for our company‘s processes, that is not an option for us unfortunately. We keep our entire office management in Asana, so I am really hoping for an Asana-based solution in this case.
However, your suggestion might well help others with the same issue
Here’s a suggestion, which is a variant of something we actually use weekly. I present it below using checkmarks, which you said you didn’t want but I think are easiest. But after I describe an alternative.
One-Time Setup
Make a project called “Shopping” (or similar name).
Add a dropdown custom field called Category with option values Food, Stationary, etc. (I think it’s more flexible to make this a custom field than to use Sections, but you could do that instead of you prefer).
Add a task for each shopping element. When done, multi-select each batch of them and assign the corresponding Category (or edit the project’s Section).
Sort (i.e., Group) the project by the Category custom field.
Set the View to All Tasks (not just Incomplete Tasks).
Save Layout as Default.
Select all tasks (shopping elements) and mark complete; they won’t disappear from view.
Regular Usage
Uncheck (mark incomplete) any shopping elements you need to buy.
When ready to shop, temporarily change the view to Incomplete Tasks to focus on just shopping elements needed.
For each item purchased, mark complete again.
Alternative to markingComplete
If you’d rather not mark tasks complete, instead add another dropdown custom field called Purchase with a single option value: .
Change the Purchase to when needed, then reset to blank after purchase. To see the shopping list, temporarily sort (group) by Purchase.
@Brenda and @Stephanie_Oberg, Thanks! Also, an slight alternative to that pattern is to use text (and/or emoji if desired) for the option value instead of the check, like “Restock”. The check is clean but not as obvious w/o looking at the column heading/caption, whereas the text maximizes clarity and is standalone, though a little more cluttered. Choice!
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