[New/Change] Goal Access Levels: Admin, Editor and Viewer

English Forum Developers & API Changelog
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Summary

  • We’re expanding Goal access levels to include Viewer, Editor, and Admin (existing Editor role renamed), giving you more granular control over Goal permissions and aligning Goals with the access model used across other Asana objects like projects and portfolios.
  • As part of this change, today’s editor role will effectively be renamed to admin. The editor role will lose setup and structure capabilities like changing the goal’s name or deleting the goal. The commenter role will no longer be able to connect work to goals.
  • All users with editor access will be migrated to the new admin role as part of this change so they do not lose access.

What’s changing

Goals now support four access levels instead of two:

  • Admin: Full control over goal setup and structure (edit name, delete goals, manage privacy settings, configure progress tracking, change status reminder frequency)
  • Editor: Manage goal content and progress (update details, dates, owner, team; track progress; manage goal hierarchy; connect related work; share the goal)
  • Commenter: Participate in discussions (view, comment, join the goal, request status updates)
  • Viewer: Read-only access (view goal, copy links, export PDFs, like, favorite)

Who’s affected

Developers using Goals APIs will be impacted, particularly if you:

  • Create Goal memberships via the /memberships endpoint
  • Add Goal followers via the /goals/{goal_gid}/addFollowers endpoint
  • Rely on Commenters being able to connect related work to Goals

Key breaking changes

1. Reduced Commenter permissions

Commenters will lose the ability to connect related work to Goals. If your application updates Goal relationships via the API, ensure users have at least “Editor” access.

2. Automatic role migration

Existing Goal collaborators will be automatically migrated:

Current Role New Access Level Notes
Editor Admin Full permissions maintained
Commenter Commenter Reduced permissions (cannot connect work)

3. Default access level changes

For Goals that are public to your domain: note that if you have a default access level of editor today, any user can take actions to manage the goal (change its title, etc). To preserve this going forward, set the default access level to admin.

API changes

The Memberships API now supports Goals with expanded access levels:

POST/PUT /memberships - New access_level values:

  • Previously: ["editor", "commenter"]
  • Now: ["admin", "editor", "commenter", "viewer"]

Important: The meaning of editor has changed. The old editor role is now equivalent to admin.

GET /memberships - Retrieve Goal memberships using ?parent={goal_gid}

Examples

// Create an goal admin membership 
POST /memberships
{
  "data": {
    "parent": "123",
    "user": "456", 
    "access_level": "admin"
  }
}

// Create a goal viewer membership 
POST /memberships
{
  "data": {
    "parent": "123",
    "user": "789",
    "access_level": "viewer" 
  }
}

Migration guide

If you currently create editor memberships:

  • For users who need full goal management: Update to admin
  • For users who only need content management: Keep as editor

If you currently create commenter memberships:

  • For users who only need to view/comment: No change needed
  • For users who need to manage relationships/status: Update to editor

If you use /goals/{goal_gid}/addFollowers:

This endpoint still works but only creates memberships at the default access level set for a goal. For other access levels, use the /memberships endpoint.

Timeline

  • Today / Aug 14, 2025 - Goal SALs are generally available, opt-in to the change with Asana-Enable change header: goal_sals_api
  • Nov 14, 2025 - opt-in period ends, opt-out period begins
  • Feb 14, 2026 - opt-out period ends

Important UI behavior note

The Asana UI will reflect new access levels regardless of API opt-in status. This means:

  • Current API “Editors” will display as “Admins” in the UI
  • Current API “Commenters” will remain “Commenters” but with reduced permissions

For consistent behavior, we recommend updating your integration to use the new access levels explicitly.

Questions or need help?

If you encounter any issues or have questions, please reply here—we value your feedback. You can also subscribe to this post or our changelog updates for the latest information.

8 Likes
2

Just a heads up that we’re 1 month out from the opt out period ending (February 14, 2026).

3 Likes
3

And we are closing out the opt-out functionality. Thanks everyone for following along! :partying_face: