Currently we are using boards with tasks on them and goals on the goal board. It would be nice to have the ability to have a task associated with a goal. For example if you have a goal of 3 tasks and 2 of those three tasks are complete, your goal would be at 2/3 or 66% etc. Is there a way to associate tasks with goals to have them update the goal?
The reason this isn’t the case is that task completion does not quantify success, therefore they can’t count directly towards goals.
Example:
GOAL: Increase sales buy 500X
Task: Send out 1M emails
The task is complete, but the goal may not be. 1M emails may only return a 2x in sales.
Goals need to be manually updated as there is a manual check as to whether the completed effort resulted in the goal.
But it could quantify success depending on the goal/task. I would hope that people have enough trust in their team to believe when they close a task as completed. I’d not expect every task to be associated with a goal, which is why I’d think it would fall in line with an “associated goal” field or something similar.
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Hi @Brian_Hellman, welcome to the Asana Community Forum 
Thanks for taking the time to provide this feedback!
While this feature isn’t available at this time, hopefully it’s something our Product team can implement in the future.
I’ll keep you posted and let you know if we have any updates 
Hi, this is something I would appreciate as well. The current Asana pyramid methodology (goals, portfolio, projects, tasks) is static. Would absolutely love to link goals with tasks. Using Asana more agile would simplify motivating your team tremendously.
PS: this was also asked for before in some way or another:
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BUT, if we could set a value to a task in relation to progress n a goal then it would work. Let’s say I have 4 tasks, milestones or sub-goals. As i set these I decide the value it has on the goal progressions. Let’s say I use %.
I have 5 tasks/gaosl/milestones and for example set them at as equally valuable then I’d set 20% for each as 5x20% = 100% and Goal reached.
Example?
Goal: Increase leads by 20%
Task: Send out 5 more blog post per month
Did that task achieve the 20% or did it exceed it, or fall short.
that is not quantifying.
Just because any of those tasks were complete, that in no way means it was successful in reaching the goal.
Goal: Increase sales opportunities by 20%
Tasks: Make 20 more calls per month
Did that task achieve the goal of 20% more opportunities? 
You need a human to weigh how much of that effort, if any, attributed to the goal.
Do you have an example how a task or milestone can itself quantify a goal being reached?
Goal: Increase manufacturing productivity by 20%
Tasks: move parts to be assembled closer to assembly station
Did the move of those parts increase productivity by 20%? 1%, 5%, 30%?
There is a measurement of effort that must be done to evaluate the impact against a goal. There isn’t a 1:1 relationship here. Do this and this will happen. Evaluating goal completion is do this and see what effect it had.
- Is there any way completed tasks kan automatically move the progression of a Goal forward
- What about setting a value to a Task / subgoal? ie - let’s say I have 4 tasks /subgoals or milestones … I evaluate them as being equally important to the progress of the Goal 25% each. I’d like to set this value on each and as each of these are completed they move the Goal progression accordingly (4x25% = 100%)
At this time goals don’t have any automation capabilities.
In your project if you use a combination of rules and dependencies you could have an automation that creates a task or comment to notify you when you can mark your goal as a certain % complete.
Good luck!
Also looking for this feature! Our team has just decided to switch from Jira to Asana for our OKRs, but when we were building out our goals, nothing linked to each other. The goal isn’t visible in the projects, the project tasks don’t filter up into the goals. This is completely illogical, kind of like building the wheel outside of the car. Tasks are how you complete key results, key results are how you complete objectives; why aren’t these linked? Even if updating the progress of a Goal is manual, the connection between goals and projects should be automated so you can see things clearly across all dimensions, which is what asana claims to provide.
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We’re also looking for this feature. Actually we’re a bit surprised it isn’t possible to link actual work items to goals, which makes Goals more or less pointless for us. Sure, you could try to explain how tasks would not not necessarily quantify completion of a goal, but that’s just one way of looking at it, and working with goals. We would set up tasks for each goal to have the complete overview, of what is needed to be done before this goal is met. Sure we could have goals of a different nature later on, let’s say sales goals in DKK, where we would not link up tasks, but for far most of our goals now, and in the future, we would tie concrete items of work to them.
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Hi Kathryn,
We completely agree: it’s illogical that goals cannot be linked to work items, used as filters and be tracked. Honestly the biggest let down when exploring our new Asana setup.
It would be great to be able to link goals to tasks & sub-tasks, rather than just to entire projects or portfolios, so we can more clearly see the link between our OKRs and work that’s being done
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Hey @anon45875128, completely agree that this would be very helpful!
Btw do not forget to click vote yourself too
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Hi everyone. 
I’m excited to announce you can now reduce work about work by connecting goal progress directly to sub-goals or projects!
Going forward, you will be able to select if you would like to update the goal progress automatically or manually in the Goal settings. If you select the automatic update method, you can choose between sub-goals or projects as the progress source:
- When you select sub-goals, the goal is updated based on sub-goal(s) progress.
- When you select projects, the goal is updated based on the number of tasks or milestones marked
complete in your projects.
When a goal is automatically updated, its progress is an average (if the metric is a %) or sum (if the metric is a # or currency) of the sub-goals or projects.
Thank you all for taking the time to share your feedback with us, we’re excited to release this new update, and hope it will help you communicate more fluidly with your teams!
I’m going to close this thread as most requests listed here have been addressed, but if you’d like to share some feedback or ask any questions, make sure to create a new thread in the #product-feedback or #tips categories!
Happy Tuesday to you all!
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