As you may have already heard, the sidebar is getting a makeover to make it easier to navigate Asana . Some of you may have already signed up for the early access and tested it like myself, until this redesign rolls out to everyone soon!
There are numerous questions being raised in the forum and some anxiety about getting prepared for this awesome redesign. Below is everything you need to know and what changes to expect so that you and your teams can get prepared and make the most of navigating Asana even easier
Personal section (Home, My Tasks & Inbox)
1.1 Where is Reporting, Portfolios & Goals gone?
They have been relocated to the new ‘Insights’ section.
Not liking this change? You can click and drag the ‘Insights’ section to the top of your sections so that Reporting, Portfolios & Goals are located just below Inbox, were they used to be.
Starred section
2.1 Where are my Favorites?
The ‘Favorites’ section has been renamed to ‘Starred’ which can include Teams, Projects, Portfolios, Dashboards (from Global Reporting), People (users such as Members & Guests) and most recently, Forms! Perhaps it will be possible to more items in the future?
You can now star users’ profile pages as well as their tasks that are visible to you (their ‘original’ profile page) There is a
icon on the latter to distinguish between these two starred items.
Starred Portfolios will have a
>
button on the right which you can click to get a flyout list of all the Projects within that Portfolio.
2.2 Where are my Saved Searches?
The former ‘Saved searches’ section has been consolidated into the new ‘Starred’ section where you can save/add any search results to your Starred section by clicking on the at the top of a search results page.
2.3 Where has ‘Deleted Items’ gone (from Favorites > Show more)?
Click here to find out!
Projects section
3.1 Why are all my projects bundled like this? Why can’t I sort them as I like? I don’t get it!!
Think of this new ‘Projects’ section as a ‘Recent Projects’ section; it is basically your ‘Top 10 list of projects’ that is automatically updated based on your usage (similar to the sidebar in Windows Explorer). It is actually super intuitive to use and you may find yourself using this section far more than the Teams section (where you can find ALL the projects within your Teams that are visible to you).
From the Projects
...
menu you can switch between ‘Top projects’ & ‘Recent projects’:
- Top projects are automatically listed by priority based on the projects you visit most often
- Recent projects are automatically listed by priority based on the last projects you have visited
from the Projects
+
button, you can create a new Project or Portfolio. Selecting ‘New project’, will take you to the project creation page but watch out that the pre-selected Team (to create the new project in) will be the first Team listed in your Teams section of the sidebar, so make sure you set the appropriate team!
Teams section
4.1 How can I see the Projects within a Team in the sidebar?
If you used to have all your Teams expanded (rather than collapsed) then this may have the biggest impact on you since this may be the most significant change to the way you navigate Asana. Personally, I think this change is great because it reduces clutter whilst increasing clarity… but it needs a little getting used to…
Click on the Team’s name to visit the Team’s overview page
Click on the
>
button on the right side of a Team’s name to make the flyout panel appear which lists all the projects within the team (that are visible to you). You can use the scroll wheel too
4.2 How can I quickly create a new Project within a Team? Where is the old
+
button?
From a Team’s flyout panel (click on the >
button on the right side of a Team’s name) you can quickly Create a new Project (as well as add teammates to the Team) without having to go to the Team’s overview page.
even quicker is to right-click on a Team and select ‘Create project’. Check out more right-click actions below…
4.3 Where has ‘Browse Teams’ gone (that used to be at the bottom of the Teams list)?
Click here to find out!
4.4 Where has ‘Show archived projects’ gone?
In the old sidebar, this link used to be at the bottom of a Team’s list of projects. However, in the new redesign it is not visible in the Teams’ >
flyout list of projects. The only way you can currently see archived projects is via the Team’s overview page using the Filter button.
4.5 How do I rearrange the order of projects within a Team?
In the Team’s flyout menus of the new sidebar it is not possible to rearrange the order of your projects. To do so, you need to click on the Team’s name (not the arrow) to take you to the Team’s page were you can click & drag the projects to rearrange them as you like. Any changes will also be reflected in the flyout menus of the sidebar.
this is not a personal preference - it will affect everyone who views the projects within that team.
4.6 How do I move a project from one Team to another Team?
In the new sidebar it is not possible to drag & drop a project into another team. Instead go to your project and from the Project Action menu ( on the right of the project’s title) select ‘Move to another team’.
to perform this action, you need to be a member of both teams.
Cool things about the new sidebar
Resize the Sidebar
A much wanted feature, you can now resize the width of the side bar by hovering your mouse over the right edge and click and drag to change the width as one would expect!
Reorder Sections
You can click and drag the sidebar’s sections (Starred, Projects, Teams & Insights) up and down to reorder them as you like.
you can also reorder items within the Starred section, as well as Teams within the Teams section, as expected.
Light sidebar colour
The sidebar is now available in a Light theme instead of just Dark.
From your avatar/profile > My Settings > Display > Theme set to ‘Light’ > Sidebar & topbar color
you cannot set the sidebar to Light if your ‘Theme’ is set to Dark.
12 awesome things you can do with the right-click button
Right-click context menus are new to the sidebar!
You can now right-click on items in your sidebar to:
- open any item in a new browser tab (or app window)
- add or remove an item to/from the Starred section
- change the colour of a Project, Portfolio or Dashboard
- change the icon of a Project or Dashboard
- rename a Project, Portfolio, Saved Search or Dashboard
- copy link of a Project, Portfolio, Dashboard, Saved Search, Person or Form
- share a Project or Portfolio
- archive a Project
- assign a task to a Person
- send a message to a Person
- invite teammates (by right-clicking on a team)
- create a new project (by right-clicking on a team)
Things we seem to have lost in the new sidebar redesign
Well you can’t have it all, but below are some features I could no longer find in the new sidebar design:
- Ability to duplicate a project from the sidebar (previously from the
...
menu of a project) - Ability to view Archived projects (see 4.4 above)
- Ability to change the order of projects of a team (only possible from a Team’s overview page)
- Ability to drag & drop projects from one team to another team
- Predefined saved searches such as ‘Messages I’ve sent / received’
- ‘All items’ from Favorites (did anyone ever use this?)
- ‘Edit Team Settings’ (previously from the
...
menu of a team) - ‘Send a Message via Email…’ (previously from the
...
menu of a team) - ‘Remove me from this Team’ (previously from the
...
menu of a team) - Anything else for the history books or that you would like to bring back?
Resources
-
New Asana Guide article
-
Quick walkthrough video by Asana
-
Follow up on when this new sidebar design will be released
That’s it!
Hope you found this guide helpful so that you and your teams can make the most out of the new sidebar design! I’m sure I missed something so please let me know