We use Asana for accounts receivable by indicating the client’s outstanding balance in the task description, as well as when our last invoice was issued and when the client last made a payment. Every collections tasks is added to a “Collections” project for easy viewing.
We want to sort these collections tasks according to custom fields, such as:
- how much $ is due in each task
- when the last invoice was issued
- when the last payment was made by the client
Can this be done using custom fields or some work around?
@Daniel_Goldwater you can absolutely accomplish this with custom fields! In fact, the use case you describe is a great example of how custom fields can help you be more productive and efficient.
You’ll need to create a project. Then, I suggest you create custom fields for the three examples you list above. From there you can sort the project to view by custom field.
I suggest that you view this Guide article for detailed instructions
Let us know if you have follow up questions!
3 Likes
Thanks, @Alexis, I figured it out.
A few things (sorry for my community newbie mistakes - maybe these items should be posted elsewhere):
(1) Format: Please add date, currency format options to custom fields. @Todd_Cavanaugh has a great post on this issue, with other proposals. My team would love this.
(2) Question: Can I sort a custom number field by descending order? I want highest numbers to rank first.
(3) Column width: In task list view, my custom field columns are so narrow I can only view about 4 characters before truncation, even when I resize my window or change zoom. Please implement option to resize column width. I see @Matt_Hubbard has a post about this and I’m using @Joe_Thomas’s plugin as a workaround, but I’d like it to be a reliable native feature.
(4) Conditional formatting: Please add conditional formatting features so, say, if a custom field attains a certain value, it can trigger something else (like, say, triggering a change in the priority level field).
Thanks!
1 Like
Hi Daniel! No community newbie mistakes here! So glad you’re posting, that’s all that matters 
-
Format - Feel free to add this suggestion to our product feedback category!
-
Sort numbers in descending order - In this case you’ll just have to sort by custom field, I’m afraid.
-
Column width - The plugin workaround is your best bet right now. We don’t offer a column resizing feature at this time.
-
Conditional formatting - Feel free to add this suggestion to our product feedback category!
Let me know if you have any other comments or questions!
1 Like
We are currently using the free version of Asana and weighing in on whether to purchase the paid version for our needs. The custom fields options sounds interesting but I’m curious as to whether the custom field can be setup to sort tasks by the latest activity. We are an IT firm and we keep our tasks open via the mobile app or website all day. When out in the field our previous app let us see the latest changed tasks if we wanted to. This would allow us to view quickly and move on. With Asana there is a bit more drilling down. Can the custom fields option accomplish this?
Big Upvote here. The current restriction of only sorting by Ascending value only is a big problem for us.
6 Likes