I am regularly seeing questions about what should be the first steps when starting to use Asana or how to onboard team members.
Asana provides a lot of guides and many tips have been shared in the forum already.
However, I decided to prepare another A to Z list to compile key links and resources.
[A] - Asana Articles & Academy Tutorials
This is probably the first article Iâd recommend going through to understand âWhy Asana?â. Asana Help Center
This will help you understand how Asana can help you and your team to become more efficient and improve your workflows
When signing up to Asana you will receive valuable tips and steps on how to get started via emails.
If you have never used Asana before I recommend going through all these emails in detail and testing out the things on the go as well. Ensure your team members do the same as this way you learn the basics super fast
You will also find a lot of valuable information and courses in the Asana Academy:
- Asana has prepared a nice project for Asana Ambassadors in Asanaverse about Get Your Team Using Asana which contains a lot of tips, tricks, research, articles and more.
Another MUST mention for âAâ is the powerful
Admin Console
https://asana.com/guide/help/premium/admin-console
[B] - Books
Now if we are talking about Asana books for many of you that have been active in the forum already, the first name that will probably come to your mind is Bastien. He has written a bunch of Ebooks which you can find on his website.
He also lead the creation of this eBook that contains the best forum posts around Asana tips and tricks:
Asana Mind - 100+ Tips and Tricks from Asana Experts đ Asana Mind: 100+ Tips and Tricks from Asana experts - A new free eBook
And here is another list of general book recommendations related to project planning, collaboration and execution:
[C] - Community
Whether you want to deepen your Asana expertise, are an Asana âfreakâ or want connect with like-minded individuals apply now to become an Asana Ambassador or Solutions Partner.
https://asana.com/partners/solutions-partners
[D] - Developers & API
âBuild apps that bring your ideas to life, and help your team do better work faster.â
More info on the Asana API here: Asana Help Center
Whether you are a developer or you have questions about the Asana API refer to the relevant category in the forum: Developers & API - Asana Forum
[E] - Events
Join interesting learning talks and other events:
Events for the Asana community team: https://events.asana.com/asana-community-events/
[F] - Forum
Sign up to the Asana Community Forum to get started and connect with other Asana customers and fans to share ideas, help each other, create threads, upvote feedback requests and a lot more.
https://asana.com/guide/help/community/community-basics
Before posting ensure to read through Asanaâs Community Guidelines: FAQ - Asana Forum
And donât forget to bookmark your favourite posts so you can access them easily at any time.
[G] - Guide
Asana has launched an In-product âGetting Startedâ last year. New! In-product âGetting Startedâ Guide
Here is the main link to the Asana guide where you can find a lot of valuable info:
https://asana.com/guide/get-started/begin/quick-start
Iâd also like to link this awesome guide:
Goals & Milestones
https://asana.com/guide/help/premium/goals
https://asana.com/guide/help/premium/milestones
[H] - đ Help
FAQ - Here is a list of common questions around Asana: Asana Help Center
Questions about your account, billing or anything else that you cannot find the answer for just reach out to the Asana support team: Asana Help Center
[I] - Integrations
Asana connects with many tools such as Zendesk, Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack and many more.
You can find the full list of integrations here:
[J] - Journey
Mastering Asana is a journey. Do not expect to know everything from day 1.
Set yourself some milestones and goals and celebrate when you achieve them
Hint: For a special celebration use Tab-B and Tab-V. To work its magic, be sure you have âExtra Delightâ turned on in the Hacks tab of your Profile Settings.
You will make some mistakes along the way, but donât we all know that making mistakes actually helps us learn better?
It will be an exciting journey and I am sure you are going to love it!
Be prepared for an exciting journey, that I am sure you will love!
[K] - Know your team
So this is a very important point that goes hand in hand with the point âOâ Team Onboarding.
To assist your team with the whole process you will need to know the strengths and weaknesses of your team members.
Why? This way you can tailor the training process and the amount of guidance you give or the way you guide and assist them.
For example, sometimes people could be very reluctant in transitioning to a new tool. Those would need more communication in the first instance and it is important to explain the why. Why is the switch being made? How it can help them with managing their tasks, etc
Some might be fast learners, others need more time.
I also recommend somebody in your team/company to be the Go-to-person for anything related to Asana. This person needs to monitor things very closely especially at the start and provide tips on the go whenever they spot something that could be improved or praise team members that are doing well already.
And also think about ways to keep your team motivated. đŞ Keep your (remote) team motivated with the help of Asana - A to Z
[L] - Languages
Asana is currently available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. You can switch the language from the display tab of your profile settings.
[M] - Mobile App
The Asana mobile app allows you to work from anywhere: Download the Asana App for Mobile and Desktop ⢠Asana
Here is a quick iOS start guide: Asana Help Center
And here is the Android start guide: Asana Help Center
[N] - Notifications
One of the first things you should be setting up as well are notifications.
Whether you prefer to receive notifications via email or you rather use the Asana inbox, whether you enable Asana notifications on your mobile phone make sure you review your settings over time so you do not receive more notifications than you need.
Also do not forget to constantly leave tasks or disable notifications for tasks/projects you do not need to be notified about or you cannot bring any value as this would rather be disturbing than helpful
Here is a detailed overview of the notification settings: Asana Help Center
[O] - Onboarding Your Team
Once you have set up your first projects and tasks, gone through various tutorials and articles and starting to master Asana you are ready to onboard your team:
Here is a handy checklist (project template) that Asana has put together: Team Onboarding Checklist
Here is the link to
âRoll out Asana to your teamâ webinar
And here is the relevant link to the team onboarding forum category
[P] - đŽ Portfolio
âPortfolios provide a holistic view of all your important projects in one place.â
https://asana.com/guide/help/premium/portfolios
[Q] - Questions? Quiz?
Do you have a specific question and are not able to find the answer in the Asana guide?
Donât worry just use the search feature in the Asana Community Forum and then skim through relevant posts and threads.
Still not found what you are looking for?
Just open a new thread in the relevant forum category: Asana Forum
Quiz
[R] - Reporting Rules
Pull in data from any project and team to create helpful graphs and charts.
Advanced Search Reports
Rules
Asana rules rule! You are going to love rules as they can help you a lot in improving the efficiency of your workflow and automating many things.
https://asana.com/guide/help/premium/rules
Want to learn more about rules? Look no further:
[S] - Shortcuts
Here is a list of the available keyboard shortcuts: Asana Help Center
[T] - Templates
Need help planning first workflows?
Have a look at the Asana project template gallery: Free Project Management and Business Templates ⢠Asana
You will also find a lot of templates on Templana: https://templana.com
[U] - Use Cases
Look through various use cases to give you an idea of how you can manage and set up workflows for your departments and teams.
I also recommend checking out the âUse Casesâ category in the Asana Community Forum:
https://forum.asana.com/c/usecases/
[V] -
Video Tutorials
You can find a lot of helpful video tutorials in the Asana Academy:
https://academy.asana.com/series/video-tutorials-tips
and also on Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJFG93oi0wJDMccrrEbbZha0v64Jo63K8
Another important feature to mention under the letter âVâ is
View Options
I recommend not just working with one view as each has its advantages.
Such as being able to sum numerical custom fields in list view.
Youâd probably always have your preferred view saved but that does not mean you cannot switch other views when those work better/ give a better overview for what you are trying to achieve/ see.
Learn about the viewing options Asana offers for your projects:
https://asana.com/guide/help/views/basics
And more info on âMy Tasksâ:
https://asana.com/guide/help/fundamentals/my-tasks
Visibility
Great thread by Bastien about who sees whom - especially related to guest users/
[W] -
Webinars
The Asana Customer Success Team is regularly hosting live sessions about various topics.
Donât miss out and sign up now:
Here is the relevant link to the Webinar Forum Category: Events - Asana Forum
Iâd also like to mention this workshop hosted by Larry Berger: Tackle (almost) anything in Asana: Step-by-step 509
[X] - x@mail.asana.com
You are probably wondering why I have posted this email address here. Well the cool thing is you can create tasks very fast by sending or forwarding an email to x@mail.asana.com
This will create a task in âMy Tasksâ
You could even set up a filter in your inbox for specific emails that should always be forwarded automatically.
More about this here: Asana Help Center
[Y] - Youtube
You will find plenty of interesting videos on how to do things on Asana on their Youtube Channel:
[Z] - Zusammenfassung
Could not come up with an English term now that fits well, so here you go, you just learned a German word which means âSummaryâ
All in all, Asana is providing a lot of guides, tips and tricks in various forms, so whether you are more the visual or auditory learning type or you prefer to learn by just reading there are a lot of resources available that will help you master Asana very quickly
And as a final tip, here is a great list of ways you can save time in Asana: Asana Help Center
And make sure to look through other cool features such as forms, custom fields, dependencies and more. Asana Help Center
I hope I have covered the most important things. Should you see anything missing in the list please let me know