"Tab+N" our new shortcut to create Sections

Honestly, I think this made the use of Asana more complicated. It used to be so easy to create sections. Furthermore, sections were able to contain info and sub-tasks, which can be very useful for general information about the section. I really cannot see what was the problem with creating sections with colon. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of not following the ancient rule: IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT!!!

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Honestly, i am so disapointed about the new section feature. First, we cannot add the section to another project. Second, sections were able to contain info and sub-tasks, which can be very useful for general information about the section. I really cannot see what was the problem with creating sections with colon. Worst you can’t delete a section if related tasks (completed or incompleted) are not deleted first? This made the use of “section” worthless. It used to be so easy to create sections, uncreate section simply by adding “:”… This is a big turnoff for us…

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A post was split to a new topic: Issue with Sections

I’m confused because I can do both of those things and I have a business subscription. Do you by chance have the ability to switch between List and Board view? I do not, so I’m wondering if the inability is somehow tied to that functionality.

Yes, that explains the difference - you haven’t been converted to the new Sections model yet. You’ll know you’ve been converted when you can switch between List and Board views.

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Ah. Thank you @Phil_Seeman.

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There is also a new issue that removes the ability to automatically create “Sections” if the task name is followed by a colon (e.g. “Section Name:”). The new importer must be ignoring the colon:Section_broken|516x100

Hi @Owen_Friedrich, this is a different issue, so moving you post to "Tab+N" our new shortcut to create Sections!

Marie - I was referring to creating sections using CSV import not manually from the Asana list. It looks like new CSV import documentation was published that changes how Sections are created. Asana CSV Importer • Asana Product Guide

I expect this change to also resolve the issues of reordering sections along with their tasks, which make Sections very bad to use today IMO. Even if one remembers to select the section and all its tasks when moving, they are probably using the “Incomplete tasks” view and the move will miss all the completed tasks.

Also being able to collapse/expand sections would be great.

In fact what I’d like is the new sections implementation to work much like a drop-down custom field does today – that solves the two issues described above – but also providing a less cumbersome way to add/edit/remove sections.

(this thread is now so big I cannot confirm if this have been touched upon before; I’m sorry in advance if this has already been mentioned)

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@Carlos_Knippschild, Yes, tasks as members of sections will move with them, and the sections will allow expand/collapse.

Larry

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Good evening everyone. I just put a post with some #productfeedback on the new Sections behavior. Switching from Boards to List View (and vice versa) - #343.

In Summary:

  • You can’t close the new sections or archive them or remove them from view
  • If you try to delete them, you have to move ALL the tasks under that section to either another section, or to the very top of the project so they are not assigned any section. THEN you can delete the section that is no longer needed.

I put my post on the other thread because the behavior is, in my mind, very clearly tied to the desired ability to switch between lists and boards, but the content of my feedback is relevant to this thread as well.

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Hi All, adding a vote for restoring the old method of creating a subtask section via semicolon and voicing support for also making it a menu option. For our team the new Tab+N hotkey is a bit clunky in having to somewhat retrain the muscle memory, but more importantly this represents a accessibility challenge. For us specifically, we have a team member who relies quite heavily on the standard Windows on-screen keyboard for his computer interactions. Unfortunately the on-screen keyboard does not appear to be capable of producing the Tab+N hotkey so he’s effectively unable to create subtask sections entirely.

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I’m having problems with marking Sections complete. Our team has a weekly meeting where we review the sections and mark things complete if the discussion of whether we need additional tasks or subtasks leads us to determine we are finished with that Section. We saw this week that we don’t appear to have the ability to mark a Section complete and have it disappear from a list. This is going to leave us with a bunch of Sections with no incomplete tasks under them, just cluttering up our list. How do we get rid of Sections without deleting our record of work if we can’t mark them Complete? We have also noticed the Section name has a duplicate Task name under it. Has the structure of task levels changed? Was an extra level added while we were too busy to learn about it?

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What the heck is going on! I can’t create subtasks in sections any more and I can’t assign sections to other projects. This basically just broke my whole workflow! It basically makes sections POINTLESS for me. I’m really disappointed in this. Switching back and forth from list to board view is not something that really needs to be done in the first place! Grrrr. So frustrated. I now have to move everything around so that Asana actually works like it did a couple of weeks ago. This is such a waste of my time! Please, just leave it alone!

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Hi @Casey_Choate and welcome to the forum,

Not intending to at all minimize your frustration…

It’s true that you can’t assign sections to other projects, but the part about creating subtasks in sections doesn’t sound right, although I’m not 100% sure what you’re meaning by that. If you want to elaborate on that one a bit more, it might be that it’s possible but needs to be done a little differently.

I completely agree! My entire team has now lost the ability to Complete a section and deleting the section (and potentially losing all tasks within) is simply not an option. Neither is moving out all of the tasks before deleting as some Sections can run into 1000+ tasks! A very poor update in our opinion and would strongly urge the ASANA team to rethink.

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I must admit, I’m finding this quite funny. Asana were well aware of the problems this was causing back in January, but have continued regardless… It’s my understanding you have no chance of them ‘re thinking’ this.

However, I will say. that if you use the ‘milestones’ feature, then what you can do is put another task at the bottom of the section (call it Completed and Done '. then it’s up to the person to just tick that rather than the section.

This gives better visibility of the status overall i think.

As for moving and deleting tasks, again, it requires us to re-think. Each task should be an atomic thing, not something that gets moved from section to section (unless that’s your workflow, e.g. TODO, DOING).

Rather than long lived tasks, again, it helps with the overall understanding of the project.

and then finally, actually having projects that are exactly that, projects with a defined start and end objectives.

This seems to be the way it’s going.

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I have used Asana since the very beginning. I don’t know what’s happened over the past year or so.

First, the TAB-N change. Apparently this was “necessary” to implement switching between boards/lists. I still can’t believe that they would change such a fundamental part of the system.

And, now…I don’t even know how to describe what has happened with the latest big update. Everything is just weird. Where I used to be able to use keyboard shortcuts before and just starting typing (TAB-D, TAB-A), now I’ve got to click fields with my mouse and select dates from a calendar (if the right pane is closed). The layout looks like a spreadsheet now—the eye doesn’t know where it wants to go. You have to click in much more specific locations to take action. Adding sections and even tasks is more time consuming.

They’re coming out with all these new features at a rapid-fire rate, but it just feels like they’re breaking the fundamentals. I can’t understand why they are doing this. Maybe I have simpler needs and Asana is now just overkill for me now.

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That duplicate Task with the same name as your Section is just a 1-time Asana creation, to aid your transition by saving any data you may have had attached to the old, tasklike Section. You can delete each such Task occurrence once you’re sure you don’t have any data in it, and it will never recur.

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