I have transferred over a file from airtable and filled in all the relevant infomation on the “list” view. I want to display the information on the “timeline” view, however, some of the tasks are showing as blocks of colour, without text, when others show as blocks of colour with text, and others show as blocks of colour, with the text inside the block.
How can i set it so when I zoom out to show half a year, the task’s text is displayed to the right hand side of the block of colour on the timeline?
The blocks without text are due to only a single due date being set for the task
The blocks of colour with text are due to a start and due date being set for the task
I believe what you’re asking is a ui constraint of how Asana displays text for single due date vs start & due date tasks.
The closest “solution” I could think of is to single select a task to bring up the task details page
OR
Make all your tasks only have a due date and no start date. This way they show a small colour block with the task name after them, including the due date.
OR
Create a custom field that is single select.
Add a name to represent each of your tasks in order and allow Asana to create the colour rainbow for you for each single select. If you go beyond a certain amount, it stops adding in the colours so you may have to add them in manually if it’s that many.
Mark all of your tasks with their corresponding task name in the custom field.
Go to the timeline view and in the top right, select “options”
Change the “Color task by” to the custom field you created.
This will color code all the tasks at least so they’re easier to identify in a long chain, but will not resolve your text display issue.
In case you haven’t already ruled it out, consider toggling to the Gantt view tab and seeing if that might resolve some of your issues, albeit in a different manner (columns at the far left which will always show the task title, among others).
Thank you for your reply. I thought asana would have implemented a feature so you can easily track tasks without the hassle of clicking into specific tasks to find out what they are. It isnt very useuful for long term project planning and timelines for key events. If you can think of an alternative method of displaying this, I would greatly appreciate it since I am new to asana. Thanks again
I would look at what Larry is suggesting then using the Gannt view.
You may have to play with sections a bit to get the kind of viewing you may want and I’d look at potentially incorporating the 3rd work-around I mentioned to have some visual color coding to make it easier to identify stages or other relevant information if you have a lot of different steps and tasks.
Also keep in mind Gannt view shows ALL of the tasks, even without due dates, whereas timeline is due date dependent for the view.
