Project Template assigned tasks show up in My Tasks automatically

[Dan14]

This a fundamental limitation of the programming. Everything is realtime so one cannot park data of a project or template project. One can only discrimination who sees the work. If you started a project is shares.

[Andrew_Legrand]

We just tried using project templates, and when I assign a task to a teammate in a template, it appears to the user as a normal task that isn’t in a template. They can mark it as done, change dates, etc.

But, I’m only creating the template. The team member doesn’t actually have a task yet, and they won’t until we use the template, and the project actually starts.

So the feature I’m requesting is the ability to assign tasks to teammates within templates, but if the project is marked as a template, to hide that task from the teammate.

[Stephanie_Oberg]

Yes, we all want the same thing you do - a real template where no tasks are activated or assigned to the named users until the template is activated by turning it into a project - but that is not currently available. There is a big, 2 year old thread on this…you may be able to find it by searching, so you can vote.

[Phil_Seeman]

@Stephanie_Oberg

There is a big, 2 year old thread on this…you may be able to find it by searching, so you can vote.

@Andrew_Legrand, here is the thread Stephanie refers to - upvote it to register your desire for a change in this behavior:

Project Template assigned tasks show up in My Tasks automatically

I was excited to use the new Templates function, but see that it goes ahead and creates a task for the Task Owner in My Tasks before it is turned into a project and clutters up their Task list. Is there any way to have task owners assigned in the template without it moving to My Tasks until you create a project? When I deleted the template all of the tasks remained for my team and it took and hour to clean up. It is just easier for me to copy a project at the time we start our process if this is…

Also FYI, here is the most commonly suggested workaround:

Project Template assigned tasks show up in My Tasks automatically - #5 by LenSantos

[Natalia]

Hi @Andrew_Legrand and thank you so much for sharing your feedback with us.

If it’s OK with you I’m going to merge this thread with the one that @Stephanie_Oberg and @Phil_Seeman mentioned so we can consolidate feedback on this topic.

Have a great day everybody!

[Klaus_Baer]

I totally agree with Mr. Verdis. BY definition, the fact that it is a template, should mean it does not show up as an active element within the system.

[GrowWithJen]

I would love to see templates assigned to team members be non-actionable tasks. We use a lot of pre-assigned tasks in various organizations to solve time when there are hundreds of tasks. This needs to be an option so it isn’t a lot of work to set up a new project.

[Andy_Morse]

For the money we pay for this product templates should work as the word implies. What’s the status on putting this into the product.

[Dan_Grunstein]

Hi

I would like to create a template of a project with already assigned tasks to people so that when a project is created based on that template, tasks are immediately assigned.

The problem is that tasks are appearing in “My tasks” even if there is no project opened based on that template…

How to avoid this?

[Stephanie_Oberg]

This behavior has been much discussed: Project Template assigned tasks show up in My Tasks automatically - #28 by AjD The user community is unanimous that the current “template” behavior is not what we want. Unfortunately the best you can do right now is acceptance or some basic, unsatisfying workarounds.

[Anders_Orsted_Peders]

When you assign users to a task under a template - these tasks will be shown in the users task list. It would be great, if it was possible to add users to templates and not having to see these tasks.

We use Asana for pretty much all recurrent tasks, like invoicing and so on - and this always done by the same two person, so it would be a great addition if we could build the template, but not having their “my tasks” polluted by these template tasks.

[Bastien_Siebman]

This is a very requested feature you’ll find the original thread using the search engine

[Anders_Orsted_Peders]

Cool - i did do a search but apparently did not look close enough

[Marie]

Hi @Anders_Orsted_Peders and welcome to the Forum!

I’ve just merged your post with the existing thread we already had on this topic; hope that’s ok Make sure to click on “Vote” at the top of this thread to register your vote, and if there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know!

Have a great Monday!

[Kate_Steele]

Please please please fix this issue. This is a huge time suck - whether you go with a work around or you just assign tasks to people when the tasks are generated.

[BrettInSeattle]

Would it be possible to get this merged with Template tasks showing for users ? They are essentially the same thing.

I cannot stress this enough - to the good people at Asana: please add functionality that allows users to hide tasks that are in templates from the My Tasks view.

Thank you!

[Todd_Cavanaugh]

I think Asana is missing out on the newly implemented “Save as a Template.” Basically, all it does is allow users to duplicate a project from the New Project screen instead of going to a project and clicking “Duplicate Project.” But it even strips away functionality but not allowing the user to pick and choose which criteria should be copied over.

To me, saving as a template should do the following which solves pain problems with the original way of creating templates as projects and just naming it “Template”:

1. Project no longer needs to be active. A project can be archived to reduce clutter in the sidebar, but you can still easily duplicate the project from the New Project screen. Unfortunately, if you archive a template it disappears from the Templates tab.

2. Tasks no longer show up in a user’s My Tasks. This is what I was assuming the whole point of templates was going to be. It’s very confusing for people when they see a task assigned to them, yet it’s not a real task they need to accomplish. It’s easy to mess up a template when a user deletes or marks a task complete because of this. Just telling someone to “move it to Later” feels like a hack, and “Save as a Template” does nothing to fix this issue.

[Michal]

Not sure if I understand you right but most of those already exist in Asana.

There is no specific “Save as Template” but you can create “TEMPLATE taskname” which is ready to use and then just make a copy of it, so it’s not true that you can only access “Copy task” from New Project. It exists for all existing projects (even archived ones). During a copy, you CAN CHOOSE CRITERIA which will be copied. Such template, when it doesn’t have an asignee and the date is not showing on your task list. So most of what you wrote is already there.

The only missing thing is that such template does show on a certain project list, cluttering the view. So having the functionality to hide it somehow would be nice.

[Todd_Cavanaugh]

Hi @Michal,

I don’t think you know about Asana’s recent templating changes. There is a “Save as Template” feature. Read this article and check out #2 in the image below:

So your comments are not addressing my feedback which I think is still valid.

[Michal]

Ah, you’re right. I thought that you are talking about tasks, because I use them as projects (with their subtasks), while projects are just some more general categories. Sorry.

Now it’s clear what you are asking for and it sounds very reasonable.