Today I Learned (TIL)

@Alexis Is this a new feature?

And, we need to be able to search/filter on “start date” in advanced search! One thing my team finds tricky about Asana is that it’s sometimes hard to know when it is time for them to actually begin the task.

As a PM, it would also be nice to be able to create a daily snapshot that shows what tasks are starting or are currently ‘in progress.’ Having a start date that could be searched and filtered would be extremely helpful!

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It is a feature that’s currently in beta and not available for everyone yet. We’re excited for the enthusiasm and feedback, and we’ll pass along your suggestions as the team continues to work on it.

@Brian_Titus You could also try a “Status” custom field that folks could update when they start on something, which would allow you to filter for tasks “in progress”.

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Thanks Kaitie, we are already using a status field with ‘waiting’ ‘in progress’ and ‘on hold’ in pretty much that way. Right now, I still have people very much focused on their daily task sheet, so it would be nice to be able to see not only what’s due today, but what’s starting today.

Will look for the continued development of this feature. I’m happy to give any feedback or input on it!

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TIL you can reorder the projects in your list of projects at the left side of the screen. I don’t know why I didn’t figure this out until today, but the UX didn’t seem to indicate that it was possible. However, if you just click and drag, a small underline does appear where your project will be moved to. Now I need to figure out if this is a personalization or if it changes for everyone…

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I can’t think of anything new I’ve learned, but here’s something pretty cool I did in Asana with a client…

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TIL even experts need reminders on communication best practices. Having conversations on tasks and in projects is a great way to keep a single source of truth for work, but sometimes teammates need a gentle reminder to keep things tracked there.

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Along the same lines as Kaitie’s comment…

TIL team Conversations and Status Updates in Asana can be a life saver (work saver?) for keeping people on the same page when they work at remote offices. Sometimes what feels like over-communication can actually be just the right amount!

Hi @Brian_Titus

I can confirm that the changes you make in the sidebar are applied for everyone. I’ve taken advantage of this to tidy up our sidebar and implement some conventions. Check out this brilliant post by @Terri_Burden for an idea of how you might organise things:

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TIL that it’s really important to assign tasks to the right people. Someone sheepishly asked me if I’d got around to proofreading something, which was due over a week ago. I tend to keep on top of everything, so I was a little embarrassed, until I noticed that the task had been assigned to my manager, who doesn’t yet use Asana very much (it’s going to be compulsory from 1 August).

I think some people in my team are still adjusting to assigning directly, rather than assigning to a manager who will then assign to a team member. I don’t know if they’re worried about stepping on someone else’s toes.

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Tom, how exactly do you do this? I can’t seem to get it to work. Thanks!

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Hi @Matt_Tully! First, you select the task that you want to use. Then you either select ‘Tags’ or press TAB + T. Now, you just press the space bar once and then the backspace key once. You should now see a full list of all existing tags (only if you’ve added tags already). Let me know if it worked!

Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, I still can’t get it to work. When I press the space bar, what seems to be a partial list of tags appears (maybe recent tags?). However, when I hit the backspace button, the partial list disappears and nothing else shows up.

That’s weird. For me, the spacebar produces no list (It just gives me the option to create a new tag that’s called " "). The list only happens after the backspace. Not sure why it won’t happen for you :confused:

Very weird. I tried adding a tag to both an existing task (that already has tags) and a brand-new task (that doesn’t already have any tags)—still the same result.

There really does need to be some non-hacky way to review/edit all of the existing tags…

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Agree, would be great to have the task appear in Calendar view across the date range (like Basecamp allows for “events”).

Yeah, there definitely should be some sort of “Tag Manager” in the settings or the navigation bar!

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That you can hit the back key and delete a subsection. So helpful! :sparkling_heart:

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This already works for me.

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I just learned that you can manage tags just by clicking on one! I was looking for the ‘Manage tags’ option in the carrot drop-down, just like custom fields.

Now I’ve discovered that clicking on a tag doesn’t just show every task associated with it, it also allows you to rename, change the colour, delete and even email tasks directly to that tag!

I love these happy little discoveries.

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