Introducing Project Overview, Project Brief, and Messages

[Jerod_Hillard]

I am now seeing Messages as well @Emily_Roman and @AaronE but want to provide some feedback from my brief use of the updates. First off, LOVE IT! So much potential here. Hopefully the points below can be seen as constructive! Happy to answer questions or be corrected as I most certainly am overlooking a thing or two…

1. It would be really nice to be able to differentiate between Messages that stem from a Team, Project or Individual/Group (Adhoc).
2. I would also take this classification a bit further as I am seeing that Status Updates also appear as Messages. I could definitely see where I would want to differentiate those from general Messages - I’m unable to tell from the search results if a Message is a Status Updates or a Project Message (or converted Project Conversation)
3. Status Updates can be offered at a Portfolio level or Project level and show as Messages also. Perhaps this presents another opportunity to differentiate from the search results list where currently only those at a Project level have this indication (until you click into the Message details)
4. Will there be the ability to edit Messages as you can Comments? Will we at least be able to edit a Subject to a Message?
5. If I refine the search results for Messages and include a filter for “No Projects” the results don’t change - Messages at the Project level still show.
6. When you send a Message to a Team do they all get the notification? Where is that set like it is at the Project level?
7. When you send a Status update for a Portfolio do all the teammates get the notification? Where is this notification setting set as well?
8. When I view the “Messages I’ve Received” from the dropdown Search option the results show ones I also sent. It seems this is because the search criteria is when I am a Collaborator. In addition to having me as a Collaborator shouldn’t it also filter on Messages that are Commented on OR Created by “Not Me”? Not sure that a Message response is classified as a “comment” in this instance though… Basically I wouldn’t expect to see Messages that I have sent where nobody has responded
9. Any reason there is only a shortcut to “Messages I’ve Sent” from my Inbox as I assume it would have been those I receive that I could click to at a minimum, no?
10. If I am looking at Messages I’ve Sent or Received and remove the filtered condition I find that not all the Messages appear in the search results although I would expect to see all of those previously represented AND SOME. It is as if they get truncated. In this example I show 182 Messages with no filtered condition, just simply searching for Messages. Yet when I include a filter for me as a collaborator some appear that didn’t moments ago.

[ham]

@AaronE

Messages - Communicate effectively at any level (individual, project, team, or any combination), directly where the work is happening. Things to know:

• Messages is taking over the “Conversations” tab in every project.
• Messages do not have a due date or assignee.
• While Conversations allowed you to update members of a specific project, Messages are more flexible as you can send them to multiple projects, people, or any combination.
• Messages can be started from Inbox, from the Messages tab in a project, from the omni button (+), or from hovering over a user’s name.
• Messages can be viewed in your inbox, in the Messages tab of a project, or in the left-hand side bar under reports (Messages I’ve Sent, Messages I’ve Received).

this is great

[Rashad_Issa]

Excellent update! Loving the project overview!

[Edoardo_Moltrasio]

Great rcommendations!

If I can add another suggestion: it would be great, if it’s not possible yet, to export the project brief to a pdf file, even with some branding customisation for sharing it with clients when they’re not involved directly in the Asana project.

Thanks!

[Ashley_Stauffer]

I like the feature to link to the message thread from the message itself. Also like the feature to create a follow-up task from the conversation from the inbox view. I wonder if it makes sense to add the “create follow-up task” in the message view next to the “link to message” icon?

[Marie]

Cross-sharing here a post from Ambassador and Forum Leader @Rashad_Issa sharing some great tips on how to use the new Project Overview and Brief features: First look into Project Overview Tab.

Go check it out and give a

[Emily_Roman]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share this detailed feedback with us, @Jerod_Hillard, it will be very useful to help our team iterate on this feature in the future!

@Jerod_Hillard

• Will there be the ability to edit Messages as you can Comments? Will we at least be able to edit a Subject to a Message?

Yes, you can edit subject and description in the messages you create!

@Jerod_Hillard

• When you send a Message to a Team do they all get the notification? Where is that set like it is at the Project level?

Yes, all Team Members will receive a notification when you create a message for the entire team. This works the same for projects and project members are notified when new project messages are sent.

@Jerod_Hillard

• When you send a Status update for a Portfolio do all the teammates get the notification? Where is this notification setting set as well?

When you send a Status update for a Portfolio, only Portfolio members are notified. It’s not possible to manage notifications settings for specific portfolios but you can manage inbox notifications at the project level from the Project settings:

@Jerod_Hillard

• When I view the “Messages I’ve Received” from the dropdown Search option the results show ones I also sent. It seems this is because the search criteria is when I am a Collaborator. In addition to having me as a Collaborator shouldn’t it also filter on Messages that are Commented on OR Created by “Not Me”? Not sure that a Message response is classified as a “comment” in this instance though… Basically I wouldn’t expect to see Messages that I have sent where nobody has responded

I’m not sure if this is currently working as expected so I’ve created a task for our team to confirm. I’ll keep you posted!

@Jerod_Hillard

• Any reason there is only a shortcut to “Messages I’ve Sent” from my Inbox as I assume it would have been those I receive that I could click to at a minimum, no?

This is something our team is aware of and we hope to implement it in future updates!

[Jerod_Hillard]

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback @Emily_Roman!

@Emily_Roman

Yes, you can edit subject and description in the messages you create!

Perfect! I overlooked this!

@Emily_Roman

This works the same for projects and project members are notified when new project messages are sent.

Right, but you have the ability to manage notifications for projects. I assume if someone has the Messages box unchecked they don’t get these notifications. I just don’t see that option for Teams unless I am overlooking it as well, which makes me think it is similar to Portfolios in that everyone part of that component gets the notification regardless, correct?

[Vaughan_Borcovsky]

Congratulations this is a fantastic development and one that I have been working through in the past couple of days. The simple step by step process, dropping in tasks and miles stones completed is fantastic.

One enhancement that would be great, if you could consider, is making the project overviews and status updates accessible for consolidated reporting.

We have 15 key projects I report to our Board of Directors every month. The status updates are completed by different person but I consolidate their status updates into a single report for the Board. In the past I have tried to consolidate these via Portfolios and used the Google Sheets sync, formatting the a new sheet into the format I use. But in this new release not all of the fields are available. and the graphs showing tasks and milestones will obviously not show. Is there anyway to report on a range of projects, e.g. via Portfolios, but don’t show status updates that displayed as a single page for each project, or can be formatted in something like Google Doc’s or sheets?

[Justine_D]

Super exciting! I have a bit of initial feedback / first impressions to share as well:

• It’s not super clear that the ‘how we’ll collaborate’ section is editable after the first edit. Took me a while to figure out you just highlight and type! Also worried others might accidentally edit since there’s no real indication that’s what is happening.
• Agree with other comments - can we customize the ‘how we’ll collaborate’ title?
• Also as others have said, the ability to delete the project brief would be great (created a few “tests” that are now stuck)
• Sometimes project briefs can take a few days to create, if you’re waiting for info - would be nice for the project owner or assigned person to be able to work on a ‘draft’ version of the brief before publishing it for the whole team.

[Marie]

Hi all and thank you so much for the feedback shared so far!

I see a lot of you asking if you will be able to customize the “how we’ll collaborate” title. This is something our team is working on, so yes it will definitely possible in the future!

We’ve also just published a new article on our blog dedicated to Project Overview and Brief as well as a brand new guide article to answer all your “How-do-I questions”, make sure to check them out !

[Crystal_Alifanow]

It’s not super clear that the ‘how we’ll collaborate’ section is editable after the first edit.

Agree. I didn’t realize until I looked at the “Show Examples”. That said, Asana, I really like the “Show Examples” in each section.

[Emily_Roman]

@Jerod_Hillard

Right, but you have the ability to manage notifications for projects. I assume if someone has the Messages box unchecked they don’t get these notifications. I just don’t see that option for Teams unless I am overlooking it as well, which makes me think it is similar to Portfolios in that everyone part of that component gets the notification regardless, correct?

I see what you mean! You can currently manage notifications at the project level but this option is not available for Teams so every message you sent to the entire team will trigger a notification for all team members.

[Rashad_Issa]

Thanks @Marie another urgent feedback please is the ability to delete a project brief from the Overview tab.

I was demoing the feature to the project team using my live project - I created a project brief which is not needed because we already have a brief document, and now I cannot delete the brief. It is sitting their in the middle of my screen painfully!

[Nicolas_Fischer]

It seems like Status updates can only be done when at least one other person is a project member, or if you tag at least one person in the update.

It would be great if you could do status updates independendly from the factors above. Our projects usually have very few (if any) dedicated members other than the project lead, so the current workflow doesn’t quite fit for us.

[Ryan_Jaskiewicz]

The loom integration is especially great. Is it on the roadmap to be able to embed in tasks and comments in the future?

[Marie]

Hi @Nicolas_Fischer,

You should be able to create a status update even if you’re the only member of your project. See the example below with a project where I’m the only member.

If you’re still running into trouble, can you please create a new thread in #tipsandtricks so we can take a look into this for you?

[Marie]

@Ryan_Jaskiewicz, I don’t believe this is in our near term plan at the moment, but if you haven’t yet, you can upvote this thread from our #productfeedback category: Loom integration with Asana

[Frauke_Cast]

I noticed that the message, even sent on project level, sends a notification to all members of the TEAM. We don’t always include all team members in all projects, so that’s a bit confusing. Is there a way to send to project members ONLY?

[Frauke_Cast]

@Frauke_Cast

project

One more thing to add: The person that got the notification for the message is not even in the team. What I think might be the connection: there was a project created within that team that then got moved into another team. Might be a bug. So the notification should not have gotten to that person at all.