Asana recently introduced the concept of task templates: you can now create, in a project, a list of Ā« task examples Ā» and when creating a task in that project, you can pick from your list of templates.
At first, my reactions was: I donāt really need task templates. And when looking at the feature more closely, I realized there actually were many possible use cases for them!
Here is a list of ideas:
have a template with a specific set of collaborators, e.g. the entire marketing team
have a template with a complex description, e.g. list of questions to ask a lead
have a template with many subtasks that you usually create manually, e.g. steps to write a blog post
have a template that pre-defined values for custom fields, e.g. pipeline stage for a lead and most common origin and country
have a template that defines a specific due date based on the creation date, e.g. a bug always has to be fixed within 2 days
standardize a task for repeated use (thanks @lpb) because sometimes you just want to ensure consistency
assignment in the template task, or subtasks of it, will not result in the appearance of the task/subtask in the assigneeās My Tasks. That wonāt happen until instantiaion of the task template into an actual task.
Those are all good uses. I think the main general use case is standardizing a task for repeated use.
Itās worth pointing out that assignment in the template task, or subtasks of it, will not result in the appearance of the task/subtask in the assigneeās My Tasks. That wonāt happen until instantiaion of the task template into an actual task. Itās a true template, unlike project templates which cause the assignment immediately.
Hi @Bastien_Siebman this must be done inside a project? I manage all my personal tasks with no project attached so I couldnāt use tasks templates is it ?
This is excellent! For the past few months Iāve been trying to figure out the best way to quickly create tasks for standardized requests, and this fits the bill to a T.
THAT is very interest. I threw in the towel on Project templates becasue it creates a disaster of double counted tasks. So no such issue with Task Templates??? Iāll have to give it a try.
Yes at the moment task templates live within projects. In your case, the trick would be to adapt my concept of task factories and have a project only dedicated to holding those templates.
@Bastien_Siebman - Love your insights. The reason why task templates work beautifully is that not everything in your business is BRAND NEW, so creating task templates is perfect for repeatable processes.
Do you know if thereās a way to use task templates in a project other than the project that you created the templates in? My use case is I have template projects for different types of projects, but some tasks are common throughout all those projects (i.e., Project Management tasks). Iād like to easily bring over just the PM task templates into the other project templates.
This is a bit of a hack, but I tested it and it works. It will be useful if you have Asana Business or Enterprise until there is a more direct native feature in Asana, I feel.
One time only:
Make a project called Task Templates and add sections corresponding to each destination project where youād like to use these common PM and other task templates
Add one rule for each section with Trigger: Task added to section (this section) and Action: Move to another project (the destination project, and optionally section there)
Add all your common task templates to this project, and continue to add one whenever you think of it.
To instantiate any one of these common task templates in any destination project, just add a task from the chosen task template in this project in the corresponding destination projectās section. Upon addition, the rule āattachedā to that section will re-home the task to the destination project.
Being able to add a re-occurring task (and its subtasks) to a project can be a real time saver.
This work around is pretty slick and certainly appreciated, but I would love to see a simpler āadd templated taskā function available to any project sections. It definitely works well when the task-template has been built in the project itself, but we need that next step.
I am new to Asana, so apologies if the question sounds basic. I am trying to use task templates to create different types of tasks, which in turn would leverage different fields. Current use case is to develop a āblocker trackerā for use in managing issues in a project. I want the participants to be able to easily submit a blocker by providing a minimal amount of data. I see that I can add custom fields when I create a template, but I donāt see the ability to delete existing fields. For example, for the blocker template, I want to eliminate Dependencies and Description, but canāt figure out how???
have a template with a specific set of collaborators, e.g. the entire marketing team
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