@Marie I’d like to report an issue with the new CSV importer.
CSV Importer is not honoring the order of tasks on the spreadsheet, which is irritating for a small scale import like I’m doing, but would be horrendous for a large one.
Use case:
Since you cannot multi-home section headings anymore across projects, it broke a bunch of things I’d set up. [Yes I was lazy. Yes I’m paying for it now. Yes thank god SNL is back on air so I have something to watch while I try to fix this.] Tonight I wanted to quickly fix the formatting of our annual operating plans for each department by adding back the headings of the quarters.
Steps to recreate:
Made a test CSV file using help guide instructions Marie posted up top. It says I can add a column called “Section/Column” and if that section does not exist, it would create for me. Asana CSV Importer • Asana Product Guide
Specifically " Before you get started: tips to organize the data in your spreadsheet" and item #8.
Created a new project (as a test) and selected my CSV to import. The preview window shows the tasks in the correct order. In my use case, the quarters and fiscal years are ordered correctly.
Also just a shout out to EVERYONE who posts on the Asana forum. I don’t post very often but really find this place so valuable when I’m feeling stuck, need some inspiration, or need validation of some…ahem…feelings towards a recent Asana change or update.
I’ve gone ahead and moved your post to its on thread to better follow-up on your issue.
I believe tasks aren’t uploaded in the same order as in your CSV because you have them nested in Sections. In the preview, they remain in the correct order because the section are materialized in a column, while in Asana they display in Sections.
So when uploading your tasks to Asana, the CSV importer creates your new sections, and nest each task under the section you have selected. Hope this makes sense
Technically, I don’t think it is possible for the CSV importer to nest tasks under the Sections you’ve selected and list tasks in the same order than your CSV, but I’ll go ahead and make a note of your feedback to our team.
I’m aware this doesn’t solve your issue, but it hopefully helps clarify why this is happening! Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any follow-up questions
I’ve tried to reproduce on my end too, but tasks seems to be correctly ordered. (See screenshot below), so I suspect this is happening because of something specific to your CSV. Would you mind sharing your test CSV with me so I can tale a look into it and try reproduce on my end? Many thanks for your patience and cooperation!
The first 266 tasks (of 286) in my project imported in inverse order (high-to-low), but as you can see, things got a little wacky with the 267th row of the project.
Thanks for the additional information @dtesterman,
In order to investigate this further, we would need to take a look at your CSV file and your project in Asana. Could you please reach out directly to our support team and share your full CSV file + the URL of your project in Asana. I would also recommend sharing the URL of this thread so you don’t have to re-explain everything from the start. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to troubleshoot this type of issue with partial screenshots, and I think our support team will be best equipped to help you resolve this efficiently!
@dtesterman thanks for sending the CSV over. I’ve used it to create a project on my end, and believe it or not but all tasks are populated in the right order Could you please share the URL of your project in Asana, this way our dev team will have everything they need to investigate
is this the same issue I’m having? am I crazy or were we able to choose which column would be Task Name up until a few days ago, and now it is gone. Am I right?
I had a fully functional CSV template I would use to import the 157 steps to my projects. now there has been an update I can’t seem to make it work. I think I may have figured out most of the headings/ sub headings issues but the row order is completely stuffed up! is anybody else finding this?
My tasks are ordered in a specific way correctly in the CSV file but when I import it it’s all over the place. Help please I’m loosing my mind!
Dear Asana my productivity had 100% diminished since you made this change!
Welcome to the Forum @Tamara_Thomas-Barns and thank you so much for reaching out!
Sincere apologies for the trouble here. Other users have reported to have this same issue and our Team is already investigating it. As soon as I have an update, I’ll make sure to let you know.
Thank you for taking time to report this. I’ve gone ahead and merged your post with the main thread to consolidate information.
i am experiencing a similar or the same issue when importing tasts to a project via the csv importer.
When i import 20 tasks, they are in the correct order from 1-20. when i import 40 tasks, the second half ( 21-40 ) is attached before task 1 and in the wrong oder (from 40 to 21 )
I also noticed, the first 20 tasks appear immediately. After that, the next tasks are added one after another and it takes quiet some time. So, it appears that there is something working different after 20 tasks.
I also noticed that i cannot see the preview, both in firefox and chrome ( both latest versions )
Welcome to the Forum @Matthias_Fischer and thank you for taking time to report this and for providing all this information! It’s super helpful to understand this issue further!
I’ve gone ahead and add your report to the Bug filed on this topic. I’ll keep you posted here!
I wanted to let you know that our Team has pushed a fix for this issue and it should be working as expected now.
Thank you for your collaboration and patience! I’m marking this as resolved but please let me know if you are still experiencing inconvenience regarding this and I’ll be happy to assist you further!
