Hello everyone.
Can someone please give me a clear definition of follow-up task and what it does.
Thank you
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Hi @saad.b,
It creates a new task with the following characteristics:
- The new task’s name is “Follow up on [name of task you created it from]”
- It’s assigned to you, so that it shows up in your My Tasks list
- The task’s description contains a hyperlink linking it back to the task you created it from
@Marie, FYI it does look like there’s no mention of follow-up tasks in the Guide.
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Hi @Phil_Seeman and thanks for jumping in!
This guide article has been updated with the follow-up task option, but there isn’t a lot of information; I’ll see with the team in charge of the guide if we can add some more information on this topic!
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Yeah not much there. Also, on that page the purple numbers are off by one between the graphic and the list for the last half of the menu items (because Print got skipped).
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Thanks for flagging this issue @Phil_Seeman, I’ve gone ahead and made a task for the Team looking after thr guide 
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I got a brief understanding on Follow-Up task. But the mentioned guide is still does not have more details on Create Follow-up task option.
Is there any plan to update the guide?
Hi Team - very interested in knowing more about this. The guide says you can Create follow-up task but how do use this?
Is this instead of using comments to say HEY ME, talk to XX about this?
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That task seems to be at the bottom of the priority list.
When you’re in a task, click on the three dots on the top right and select “Create follow-up task”
I’m new to Asana and I have same question.
When I attemped to create follow-up task, I can see there is a link of based task, and task name is quoted.
However, I wonder how should use for, what situation is imagend by designed.
I’d like to create sub-task like this,
ex.) Based task is “Prepare my dinner”
so, subtask will…
subtask 1 : Read a recipe
subtask 2 : Buy groceries
subtask 3 : wash and chop vegetables
…and so on.
Could the “follow-up task” use as subtask above?
or just means related task?
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I’m sorry, I found subtask is exists.
Also I confused that the follow-up task is what for?
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Hi @Marie,
I’m wondering if this was ever addressed by the documentation team? I’m still seeing nothing beyond the items being listed as something you can do, with no description. Am I looking in the wrong spot, has the description been added somewhere else?
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There really isn’t much more to a follow up task beyond what Phil’s explains:
It’s a simple action that allows you to easily set a reminder task to do something related to something else. A couple scenarios in which I find creating a follow up task helpful:
- Someone has a task that captures the meeting minutes from a customer meeting. I might create a follow up task to review the minutes or take action on something I read.
- My boss shares some key information in his team meeting agenda that requires me to communicate to my team. I’ll create a follow up task to remind myself to do just that.
- A task was created with an intended plan and has now gone past due. I might want to retain the details of the original task (assignee, due date, description, etc) but need to follow up on some irony related - I’ll create a follow up task.
Hope that helps clarify. Also, it’s easy to do. As noted below.
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Thanks for the clarification on the Follow-up task. Is there a way to duplicate the Project(s) the follow-up task lives in?
I run an Action Registery KanBan workflow where I look at all my projects for the week and pull 1 or 2 items from each project to my Action Registry. In this scenario, I have a task, send Joe some report he asked for.
I want to then create a follow-up task (to retain the link back to the completed task’s notes, etc.) and have it live in both the project AND my action registry.
As an extension to this, is there a way to change a setting somewhere when I complete a task, I am prompted for a follow-up task? IE Call Bob and book discuss the purchase of Willy’s Chocolate Factory. I call, leave a message. Next, I want to reschedule a follow-up task to call again in 2 days.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Yes, you can duplicate through project actions. However, this will merely create a copy of what already exists in a project.
If you are looking to setup a template where follow-up tasks are embedded, I don’t believe this is inherently possible. Mainly because Follow-up tasks are an ad hoc function. There might be something you could do creatively using Flowsana (@Phil_Seeman) or Asana2Go (@lpb) to accommodate for your workflow.
You will just need to make sure the follow-up task is multi-homed to both the Action Registry and the project where the original task lives. You’d have to take note of which project that is just before performing the advanced action of creating a follow up task.
Another great question for @Phil_Seeman or @lpb! I’m almost certain there isn’t a way to automate this so that you are still able to retain the link to the original task without manually creating a follow-up task.
@Mark_Garrett and @LEGGO,
I handle what I think you’re doing in a much simpler way that I think is more aligned with Asana’s overall design. Because it’s quite different, it doesn’t require solutions to the problems you both bring up.
I use My Tasks instead of your Action Registry.
To follow up on a task I’ve just done (like making sure I get a call back), I change the Due date, Mark for Later, and wait for it to reappear in Today or Upcoming. Sometimes I’ll adjust the task title as needed.
For your weekly process (mine is different) I’d recommend making the handful of tasks you select from other projects:
- Assigned to you
- Marked for Today
- Moved to Sections within Today that you keep in place to allow you to organize them as you wish within Today
Currently, you will have to do this in List View but soon you’ll be able to see My Tasks Board View.
Hope that might present an effective alternative,
Larry
Thanks for sharing this approach, @lpb!
I’m glad that you chimed in to offer a different perspective on how work of this nature can be managed. I was a bit tunnel-visioned in my responses with the aim being to make use of the Follow-Up feature. I totally agree with your approach and it being a much simpler consideration to automating what @Mark_Garrett is looking to achieve.
For what it is worth, I handle my work VERY similarly to you. The only difference being that in some instances I elect to create a Follow-Up task instead of renaming the task title, after completing the original ask of the task. Setting due dates and marking for later (or upcoming) being a standard step in the process as well!
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Yes, same here! Sometimes that approach is helpful too.
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