Idea: Timeline that gives an overview of projects instead of tasks

Feature idea

I love the new Timeline feature for projects, but it only shows tasks within that project.

What I would love to have is a Timeline that gives me an overall view of different projects themselves. Iā€™m managing different projects and it would be very useful to have a Timeline that shows the projects, instead of tasks.

YES. Having a timeline view for Projects would be invaluable.

This would be a great way for Asana to improve on management of multiple projects, which is well behind Asanaā€™s ability to manage tasks. This is a great opportunity for Asana to improve on an area that users have disappointed with in the past.

I would suggest:

  • Adding a start date to Projects, which already have due date.
  • Adding Project dependencies, like Task dependencies.
  • Adding a timeline view to the dashboard.
  • Supporting Sections on timelines. (Which works but needs to be an official feature to be able to rely on it.)
  • Support Section dependancies. (Which may work. I havenā€™t tested, but also would need to be an official feature to rely on it.)

In the mean time @paulminors suggests a workaround here.

You could create a ā€œProjectsā€ Project with a Task to represent each Project. Those ā€œProjectā€ Tasks could be given start and due dates and then visualized on the ā€œProjectsā€ Project timeline.
And to add more functionality, you could multihome each ā€œProjectā€ Task that represents a Project into a the Project it represents. This way you not only have a ā€œProjectsā€ Project that represents the start and duel dates of all your Projects. You also have a clear view from each Project of the Project start and end dates in the list view and the timeline view. (Actually, now that Iā€™ve fully thought this out, Iā€™ve got to go do it.)

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This would be invaluable exactly as @Vince_Mustachio has said. When youā€™re part of a team and working on multiple projects just having each project view in isolation misses the big picture completely and if youā€™re part of multiple teams then forget having a clue about where your resources are most needed and having a full picture of your true workload.

It would be amazing to have a team-level timeline so that you can see each project length and also a personal timeline under ā€˜My tasksā€™ like we have the calendar showing personal workload.

Iā€™m currently following @paulminors suggestions on making projects ā€˜timelessā€™ sections and then my clients as tasks inside those projects just so I can hack some sort of timeline together and share them all to a ā€˜calendarā€™ project so I can send projects from other teams there as well (as a freelancer I often work with multiple teams). And itā€™s a million times better than before and works ok but itā€™s not perfect and means having to remember to share each project and keep multiple balls in the air. I would so love for Asana to make life easier here :joy:.

The way way Instagantt works is actually pretty perfect, Iā€™m just a bit resentful of having to pay for Asana premium for 5 people just so I can use the features myself AND pay for Instagantt premium to do something that should really be standard in Asana with timelines. Although, I appreciate timelines is a new feature and will undoubtedly grow into a better version of itself.

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Hi all, this is currently possible with the Timeline view for Portfolios :slight_smile: