Hey Asana enthusiasts! Asana August 2024 Update is here to streamline your workflow and boost your productivity! Visualize your project’s progress like never before with new stacked bar charts, keep everyone in the loop with flexible project notes, and effortlessly add team members in bulk. Automate your workflows further with Outlook email actions triggered by Asana rules, and easily track goal progress over time. Whether you’re managing complex projects or fine-tuning your personal workspace, the August update has something to make your Asana experience better.

Stacked bar charts

Asana’s new Stacked Bar introduces a powerful way to visualize both the quantity and status of tasks within your projects. Think of them as a visual snapshot that reveals not only how much work you have, but also how that work is progressing. Each bar in the chart represents a group of tasks, and within each bar, different colors or segments show the distribution of tasks across various statuses (like “To-Do”, “In Progress”, “Complete”). This allows you to quickly assess bottlenecks, identify areas needing attention, and make informed decisions about resource allocation.

Notes view in projects

Asana’s Notes View in Projects is like having a dedicated notepad built right into your project space. It lets you flexibly add and customize multiple note tabs within any project, perfect for capturing meeting minutes, jotting down brainstorming ideas, centralizing important project details, or simply keeping track of those random thoughts that pop up. You can create as many note tabs as you need, keeping different types of information neatly organized, and accessible. And because Note view integrates seamlessly with the rest of Asana, you can easily convert your notes not actual tasks, ensuring that great ideas don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Shared teams in projects

Sharing projects with teams in Asana just got a whole lot easier! The “Shared Teams in Projects” update lets you quickly add multiple team members to a project in one go by sharing it with up to ten teams at once. No more tedious individual invites – simply select the relevant teams, and everyone on those teams gains access to the project and its associated tasks. This streamline onboarding new team members, simplifies collaboration across departments and ensures everyone stays aligned on project goals and deliverables. By making it effortless to share projects with multiple teams, Asana helps you foster a truly collaborative environment and keep everyone working together seamlessly.

Outlook “send email” action rules

Effortlessly bridging the gap between your Asana tasks and your Outlook inbox. With the new “Send Email” action in Asana rules, you can set up automated emails to be sent directly from Outlook based on specific triggers or actions happening in Asana. Let’s say you want to notify your team whenever a high-priority task is completed. Simply create a rule in Asana that triggers an email from your Outlook account whenever a task with the “High Priority” tag is marked complete.  This seamless integration eliminates manual email updates and keeps everyone informed without having to constantly switch between platforms.

Goal progress over time

Staying on track with your goals is now more visual and intuitive than ever with Asana’s “Goal Progress Over Time” feature. Simply navigate to the goal’s detail page, and you’ll find a handy chart plotting the progress of your goal over its designated timeframe. This visual representation helps you quickly see how far you’ve come, identify any potential roadblocks, and gauge whether you’re on pace to achieve your target. It’s like having a real-time progress report right at your fingertips, making it easy to stay motivated, celebrate milestones, and make any necessary adjustments to ensure you reach your objectives successfully.

Duplicate Bundles

Creating project templates or recurring workflows in Asana just got a whole lot faster with the new “Duplicate bundle” feature. Bundles let you group together tasks, subtasks, sections, and custom fields, creating a template for frequently used processes. Now, instead of building a bundle from scratch each time, you can simply duplicate an existing one and modify it.

“Today” input in portfolio custom fields

With the new “Today” input in portfolio custom fields, you can now create a dynamic, date-based formula at the portfolio level. This means you can automatically populate custom fields with the current date, making it easier to track time-sensitive information across multiple projects. For instance, you could create a “Days Since Project Start” field that calculates the number of days that have passed since each project in your portfolio began.

Sandbox landing page in admin console

Testing out new Asana features or processes before rolling them out company-wide just goes a whole lot easier! The “Sandbox Landing Page in Admin Console” update provides a direct gateway to request a sandbox environment right from your admin console. A sandbox is essentially a safe, isolated copy of your Asana workspace where you can experiment with new features, workflows, or customizations without impacting your live data or disrupting your team’s work. This gives you the freedom to explore, test, and fine-tune your Asana setup before implementing changes across organizations.

Multi-filter on the Calendar view

With the new “Multi-filter on the Calendar View” feature, you can multiple filters simultaneously to your calendar in both month and week views. Want to see only tasks assigned to you that are due this week and tagged as “urgent”? No problem! Simply apply those filters, and your calendar will instantly show only the tasks that match all your criteria. This level of customization lets you zero in on the most relevant tasks, declutter your view, and gain a clearer picture of your priorities.

“Number custom field change” rule trigger

Imagine automating actions in Asana based on changes in numerical data within your tasks. That’s precisely what the “Number Custom Field Change” rule trigger empowers you to do. Let’s say you are tracking project budgets using a custom field. You could create a rule that sends an alert to your finance team whenever the budget for a project exceeds a certain threshold.

Variable in the set text custom field

With the new “Variable in the Set Text Custom Fields” action, Asana rules have become even more powerful and adaptable.  You can now incorporate dynamic variables into the text of custom fields, allowing you to create more personalized and contextually relevant automated updates.

Home customization in iOS

Asana’s latest update brings the power of personalization to your fingertips, literally! With this Home Customization in iOS, you can now tailor your Asana Home experience directly from your iPhone or iPad. Rearrange widgets to prioritize what matters most, add shortcuts to frequently accessed projects or tasks, and even customize your background image to reflect your style or mood.