Is there a way to archive projects and tasks that do not belong to me?

[Annabelle_Mcgee]

Hi is there a way to archive tasks and projects that don’t belong to me? I have admin access and can not find out how without doing either of the following workarounds. I also don’t want to send a ton of unnecessary notifications to my team when I change the project.

1. I can add individual tasks to an archived project called ‘Archived Tasks’ but we will have to remove the current project they are associated with to get them to clear off the main workspace. We will still have all of the information except for which project it was associated with before being moved.

2. I can add them to a project called ‘Archived Tasks - X,’ where the X is the current project name. So the issue with this one is I will have to create an additional number of projects to archive into, and anytime we are archiving parts of a new project I will need to create a new one. But once they are created, I can set rules for individual tasks/subtasks that will move it into the appropriate folder.

There has to be an easier way, right?

[lpb]

Note: Not a solution but marked as such to elevate a key reply

Welcome, @Annabelle_Mcgee,

Can you explain the underlying reason why you want to “archive” tasks in the first place?

I ask because I have wide visibility into Asana usage in many organizations over many years, and this need is very uncommon (but perhaps you have some unique requirement?).

For example, if you were to say that your need is that these tasks are cluttering the existing projects, then I’d suggest that, if they’re completed tasks, that you generally have your projects employ the filter to hide incomplete tasks as your default for these projects. Or if not, then consider other approaches for incomplete tasks that will never be done, like:

Completed Tasks that Aren't Exactly Completed

When you “Mark Complete” a task it usually signifies that you carried it out. What if you didn’t actually carry it out, but you still want to get it out of your hair–no longer have it appear as Incomplete (active)? A simple approach that works even with Asana’s free version is to go ahead and mark it complete but also add a tag, perhaps one of #NotDone, #NotNeeded, #Canceled. Since you might want to later locate these, Tag View (click the tag) would allow you to see a list of…

or perhaps having a collapsed section for such tasks.

Hope that helps,

Larry

[Annabelle_Mcgee]

I have several years of unfinished or unneeded tasks and projects that belong to someone other than me or completed ones that were never archived. I am cleaning up our views within projects to remove the clutter. We have 32,000 in our main work area between 2017 and 2021 that must be cleared out. I would prefer to archive entire projects, but, with the new updates, I was informed that I (I am an admin) am unable to reassign them to myself to be able to archive them, and if I can’t archive the entire project, it would require all 4 of my production team members to go in and archive anything before 2021 that they own and as a small agency, we do not have our entire team stop to complete this. I would still have many tasks that do not belong to anyone’s project.

I would love an easier solution if you have one!

[lpb]

Ah, I see!

I’m afraid this might be beyond the scope of something easily addressible in a Forum, but here’s a quick take:

Perhaps if you email support@asana.com from your Admin email address you could request them to make you a “Project Admin” for all those projects that you want to archive (assuming you are only an Editor now and thus lack the rights to archive the project).

For a project with tens of thousands of tasks, one option is what I think you’re suggesting: Age off the unneeded tasks so you turn your project into a current-only project. That’s what I suggest here:

Onging Processes: *Current* Project, Aging, and Archiving Best Practices

Do you annually recreate some projects so you can update for the new year, like 2023 Marketing Requests? Or even worse, frequently recreate monthly or weekly projects, for example, Week 24 Dev Sprint? Stop that! (I’ll explain . . .) For ongoing process projects, like a marketing or operation team’s workstream, where work flows in, is actioned, then completed only to be replaced by more work, there’s a simple tweak you can make to simplify and clarify. Just recast that project instead as “ever…

So I do think that’s a valid way to do things, but you can only multi-select 50 tasks at a time for such aging. Given the tens of thousands to do, maybe consider making the existing project the aging/archive project and create a new, current, evergreen project, and multi-home only the current tasks there (assuming that’s only a few hundred, not tens of thousands).

There’s probably more, but perhaps that offers a start.

Thanks,

Larry