Navigating Asana

Our sidebar is currently undergoing a redesign. Learn more about these changes in our Sidebar redesign article.

Interface

highlight all 5 panes

Asana's interface is divided into 5 areas:

  1. Sidebar - access homepage, My tasks, inbox, teams, and projects in your workspace or organization
  2. Header - contains the actions and views for the project, My tasks, or view you're currently using
  3. Top bar - Search, quick add, My settings..., and workspace or organization settings
  4. Main pane - displays a list of tasks, messages, calendar, progress or files
  5. Task details pane - contains the details of a task or messages

Sidebar

Our sidebar is currently undergoing a redesign. Learn more about these changes in our Sidebar redesign article.

sidebar highlights

From the sidebar, you can:

  1. Collapse and expand the sidebar
  2. Access your homepage, My tasks, inbox, reporting, portfolios and goals
  3. Access your favorites
  4. Access your saved searches
  5. View the teams you belong to and join other teams in your organization
  6. Browse for teams
  7. Invite teammates to Asana
  8. Read help articles, watch tutorials, contact support, and more

Teams are only available in organizations.  

Homepage

Homepage Layout

From your homepage, you can:

  1. View the number of tasks completed and number of people you have collaborated with during the past week or month
  2. View your goals
  3. View your upcoming, overdue, and completed tasks
  4. View recent, favorite, and recommended projects
  5. Customize your homepage

Projects

Projects in sidebar

The sidebar lists the projects in your team or workspace.

  1. Click any project's name and it will load in the main pane.
  2. Or, click the Quick Add button to create a new project.

The lock icon indicates a private project.  

Open up the project to reveal more actions in the project header.

Learn about the power of dashboards in Asana and how a project level tab containing charts can be used for visual reporting.

Favorites

Favorite projects, people (their My tasks lists), or tags to save and bookmark them at the top of your sidebar for easier access.

Only you see what you've favorited. Everyone in your workspace or organization has their own favorites list.

highlight favorites in sidebar

Click the star icon in the header to add it to your favorites. Your favorited items will appear in a fixed position near the top of your sidebar. To remove it from your favorites, simply click the star icon again.

Drag and drop to rearrange your favorited items.

How to unfavorite and duplicate a project

Hover over a project's name and click the three dot icon to reveal project actions.

sidebar project actions

Unfavourite and duplicate

  1. Click the three dot icon next to a project in your sidebar
  2. You can remove projects from favorites
  3. You can choose to duplicate projects
  4. Archive projects

Top bar

highlight top bar

From the top bar, you can:

  1. Run a search to find tasks, projects, messages, tags, or people in your workspace or organization
  2. Use Quick Add to create a task, project, portfolio, team or invite more people
  3. Access your My settings, My profile, access the workspace or organization settings, switch between your workspaces and organizations, create a new workspace or team, remove yourself from the organization, or log out

The checkmark indicates the workspace or organization you're currently viewing.

Header

highlight header

From the header, you can:

  1. Access drop-down menu with actions for the project
  2. Favorite the project
  3. Set a status for your project
  4. View a list of project members and limited access members
  5. Share your project

Project actions

project actions

Click the drop-down menu to access the following actions:

  1. Edit project details - modify the name or description of your project
  2. Color - change the color of the project
  3. Copy project URL
  4. Save layout as default
  5. Duplicate the project
  6. Save as template if in a paid team or organization
  7. Add to portfolio
  8. Import CSV files, email and connect Wuffoo to project, export your project or My tasks, or print your project
  9. Move to another team (only available in organizations), archive or delete your project

Open up the project to reveal more actions in the project header.

Learn more about all of these actions in the project actions section of the Understanding projects article of the Asana Guide.

Views

highlight views

The header allows you to switch between different views:

  1. Overview is the team's persistent hub to showcase a birds-eye view of the what, why and how of a project and drive easy understanding of its ongoing context.
  2. List is the default view and displays a list of tasks.
  3. Board view organizes your tasks within columns.
  4. Timeline is a paid feature that creates a project plan and displays how every element of a project fit together.
  5. Calendar view filters only tasks with due dates and displays them in a calendar format.
  6. Workflow helps you automate your team's process.
  7. Dashboard view offers you a real-time status update; where you can use pre-configured charts to visually report and communicate project progress.
  8. Use Messages to have discussions, make an announcement, brainstorm, celebrate accomplishments, or talk about any other topic. Messages can be used to communicate directly with people, projects or teams.
  9. Use files to access integrated project files such as Vimeo Video messaging.

Main pane

When you select a project, tag, or person from the sidebar, you'll see the relevant list of tasks in the main pane. This is also where you see search results, Inbox notifications and Messages.

main pane

From the main pane, you can:

  1. Add a new task, section, or milestone
  2. Add a task template
  3. Mark a task as complete or incomplete and view/edit the task name
  4. Identify a task's assignee
  5. Identify a task's due date
  6. View other custom fields
  7. View incompleted, completed or all tasks
  8. Filter and Sort the list
  9. Create a link to the task
  10. Customize the project

You can also see the amount of likes a task has received from the main pane.

Task details pane

The task details pane, is where you see the details for a task you've selected in the main pane.

task details pane

From the top of the task details pane, you can:

  1. Mark the task complete or incomplete
  2. Like the task, attach files, add subtasks, copy the task url, track the time spent on the task, view the task in full screen, view more actions, and close the task details pane
  3. Edit the task's name
  4. Assign the task
  5. Set a due date & time
  6. Identify what project the task is in, or add it to a project
  7. Set dependencies
  8. Add a description to give the task more context
  9. Post a comment, ask a question
  10. Add or remove task collaborators

Learn more about the functionality available in the task details pane in the tasks article.

You can also press Tab+X on your keyboard to enter full screen mode.

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