How to Get Started With Asana Goals | Product Guide
- Skip Ahead to
- Goals overview
- My goals
- Team goals
- Company goals
- Filter your goals at a company or team level
- Filter your goals by owner or status
- Filter your goals by time period
- Creating a new team from your goals’ list view
- How to create a goal
- Adding progress metrics to your goals
- View or edit a goal’s details
- Adding or editing your company's mission statement
- Track goal activity
- Adding progress metrics to your goals
- Editing a progress metric
- Types of progress metrics
- Updating your goal’s progress
- Closing a goal
- Deleting a goal
- Goals privacy
- Goal comments
- Key use cases
- Goals FAQ
Goals are available to all Business and Enterprise customers.
Goals overview
Goals are a flexible goal-tracking system that helps drive measurable results by providing a single source of truth for setting and tracking goals where your teams execute work.
With Goals, aligning your teams around clear objectives and prioritizing the right work is easier than ever. Goals help everyone at your organization understand why their work matters and what they should be working towards.
To do this, set, track, and manage both company-wide and team goals. Company goals are longer-term goals tied to the achievement of your organization’s mission. Team goals are shorter-term goals that ladder up to your company’s mission-oriented objectives.
In either case, goals are visible to everyone so that individuals across every level of your organization have clarity on the company’s priorities at any given time.
Goals can be linked as parent or sub-goals, to create a goal hierarchy, and supporting work can be added to make the connection between goals and work clear.
To access your Goals’ list view, navigate to the Goals section in your sidebar.
My goals
Use the My goals tab to quickly find and monitor the goals you own. Navigate to the My goals tab within the Goals section on your sidebar. Here you can filter by All goals, Open goals and Closed goals.
Team goals
To access your Goals’ list view, navigate to the Goals section in your sidebar.
From the Goals list view, you can:
- Filter goals by clicking on your desired goals tab. To access Team goals click on the tab to the right of Company goals.
- Add a new goal by clicking on either the Add goal tab or the goal header
- Click into any of the goals to view or edit their details
- Show or hide teams
- Click on filter to let you search and select a particular owner or **status of a goal.
- Access goals based on specific time periods by clicking on All goals
Company goals
To Access the Company goals Tab:
- Click on Company goals to bring you to the Company goals Tab.
- Click on Company Mission to outline the mission, vision and philosophy of your company goals. Defining your company mission can help to bring clarity to your team regarding the mission of your company.
- To add a goal click on the + sign to the right of Company goals
- Click on filter to let you search and select a particular owner or status of a goal.
- Access goals based on specific time periods by clicking on All goals
To add a Company goal click the + sign beside Company goals. From there you can add new goals, choose collaborators and owners. You can also decide on the privacy of the goal.
Filter your goals at a company or team level
You can filter your goals at a team level from your Team goals list view. When on the Team goals tab just click on the drop-down icon Show/hide teams and select your Organization or team. You can also search for an existing team that you’re a Member of by typing the team name into the search field. You can also find public and request-to-join teams you're not a member of by searching.
Filter your goals by status or Owner
You can filter your goals by status level at any time from the Goals list view. Just click the filter button in the upper right corner of your goals list view and select between viewing Open goals or closed goals and their status. You can also search for particular goals using the search bar.
When a filter is applied, goals that do not match all the selected filters (owner, status, and/or the team the page is filtered to) will not appear. To see all goals for that team, remove the filters.
Filter your goals by time period
By default Asana sets up a fiscal year for all organizations, and new goals will have time periods attached. You can display goals based on the time period from the Goals’ list view by clicking the All goals button and selecting the applicable time period. You can access a filtered view of goals that are active in the current time period, as well as toggling to see past and future Goal periods.
Creating a new team from your Team goals’ list view
You can create a new team from your Team goals’ list view, by clicking the Add goal button and in the Company or Team box scrolling down to the Create New team prompt.
From the Create new team window, you can:
- Add a team name
- Write a description
- Add team Members
- Choose the privacy settings for your team
- Click Create team when all of your details have been filled out
Goals are public regardless of the type of team they're associated with.
How to create a goal
You can add a new goal at a company or team level, by clicking the Add goal icon in your goals’ list view.
From the goals’ list view on your Team goals tab, you can:
- View the name of your goal, the number of sub-goals associated with it, and you can expand to see sub-goals
- Edit or remove the team associated with your goal
- Edit your goal’s start date or due date or time period
- View your goal’s progress and click to enter the goal's detail page
- Change the Owner for the selected goal
When the team is changed, the goal will be moved to the new team’s space. To find the goal, click on the drop-down icon in your goals’ list view and select the desired team.
Adding progress metrics to your goals
You can add a progress metric for your goal by clicking into the goal from your goal's list view and selecting the Add progress metric icon. These progress metrics are the same as those available when using numeric Custom Fields.
Types of progress metrics
There are three types of progress metrics that you can use for tracking your goal’s progress.
Percentage
The percentage metric is best for qualitative goals and allows you to track progress by using 0-100% and estimating the amount completed. Set a percentage metric with “100%” as the target value for goals like “Win customer loyalty” or “Grow and engage teams.” You can use the description field to add guidelines on how to measure progress.
Percentage can also be used as a progress metric to track goals with % as the unit for measurement. For example, “Increase subscribers by 25%” or “Increase our satisfaction scores from 85% to 90%”
Numeric
Best for a goal where a concrete number of results are desired. For example, “Get 1,000 survey responses” or “Conduct 3 webinars.”
These can also be used for binary goals like “Ship new feature” or maintenance goals like “Maintain 99.9% uptime on all systems” where the goal is evaluated as achieved or missed. These types of goals would be set up with an initial value of “0” and a target value of “1.”
Currency
These are best used for goals involving currency. For example, “Increase ARR to $500,000” or “Generate $80,000 in bookings in Q3."
Setting progress metrics
When creating a goal, you can select the “Update Method” in the creation modal. The options are:
-
Automatic - progress will be automatically calculated from sub-goals or projects (added on the goal’s detail page after creation)
Choose Automatic progress updates to reduce work-about work by connecting goal progress directly to sub-goals or projects. When a goal is automatically updated, its progress is an average (if the metric is a %) or sum (if the metric is a # or currency) of the sub goals or projects. When the progress of those objects changes, so does the parent progress–automatically. This option is best for goals whose success will be graded solely on the progress of projects or other goals and subgoals. -
Manual - the user will manually update the progress of this goal
This option is best for goals which have specific grading criteria that is not just the progress of sub-goals or projects, or goals whose achievement is based on external data, qualitative (a judgment of progress) or binary (achieved or not achieved).
Manual progress
If you select the “Manual” update method, you will then need to choose the Measurement, Current Value, and Target Value.
Measurement options:
- %
- Number
- Currency - Currencies available match the currencies available in custom fields: USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, CAD, AUD
Automatic progress
If you select the “Automatic” update method, you will then need to choose Progress Source and Measurement options.
- % - the goal progress is an average of the progress % of the sub-goals
- Numeric total - the goal progress is the sum of the current values of the sub-goals
- Currency total - the goal progress is the sum of the current values of the sub-goals. Currencies available match the currencies available in custom fields: USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, CAD, AUD
For automatic numeric and currency goals, the sub-goals’ Measurement type must match the goal’s. This is not the case for % goals (sub-goals can be any Measurement type).
Measurement options for Projects as a progress source
When you select to update your goal with Projects as a progress source, the goal progress is automatically updated based on project(s) progress Measurement options.
Measurement Options:
Milestones complete - goal progress is an average of the % of milestones complete for each attached project
Tasks complete - goal progress is an average of the % of tasks completed for each attached project. Note that this also includes all tasks in the project (including milestones and approvals)
If you have selected the “Automatic” method you will need to complete the configuration of the goal on its detail page
Sub-goals
Up to 100 sub-goals can be connected to progress
The “up arrow” icon next to a sub-goal progress on the detail page indicates that it is contributing to the goal progress.
If there is no up-arrow, the sub-goal is not contributing to progress, but will still appear as a sub-goal on the detail page and Goals list view
You can add/remove sub-goals from progress via the “...” menu for the sub-goal
You can also completely disconnect the sub-goal from the parent goal from this view (removes the parent-child relationship between the goals)
If you add a sub-goal that is private, those who do not have access to the sub-goal will see it as “Private goal” with a “Request access” button. The sub-goal owner will then receive a task to grant them access.
It will not show the current value of that sub-goal, but that value will still be part of the goal’s calculation
Projects
Up to 10 projects can be connected to the progress metric
If you add a project that is private to the goal owner or collaborator, those who cannot access it will see “Private project” attached with a “Request access” button. The project owner will then receive a task to grant them access
It will not show the current % complete of that project, but that value will still be part of the goal’s calculation
Projects that are in the “References” section can also be added to progress by using the “...” menu on the project line
Goals with the “Automatic” update method will be designated with a lightning bolt on hover on list view When you have selected the “Automatic” update method, you will not be able to edit the “progress” field when posting status updates. You will however still be able to post status updates.
Editing progress settings
You can edit progress settings via the edit pencil on the detail page, or through the menu in the header. This allows changing the Update Method, Progress Source, Measurement, and Decimals, (and if Manual, also the Current Value, Starting Value, and Target Value)
If you change from a “Manual” to “Automatic” update method:
- Any connected sub-goals contribute to progress by default (they can be removed via the “...” menu)
- Any connected projects remain in References. To connect them to progress, you should do so via the project’s “...” menu
If you change from an “Automatic” to “Manual” method:
- Sub-goals that previously contributed to progress remain connected as sub-goals (but no longer contribute to progress)
- Projects that contributed to progress move to the References section (but no longer contribute to progress)
- If a sub-goal contributes to progress and its Measurement is changed, it will contribute to the progress of any parent goals with which it has a compatible Measurement. However, if it’s incompatible, it will no longer contribute to progress.
References
The References section appears on the main pane, and has a limit of 100 connected object
Connected objects are sorted into “Project” and “Portfolio” sections
If the goal is “Automatic,” a project can be connected to goal progress through the “...” menu. The project will then appear in the progress section, not the References section
Note that the 100 object limit is inclusive of the projects connected to progress
View or edit a goal’s details
To view or edit an existing goal, click into the desired goal from your goals’ list view.
You must add a progress metric for your goal before you can update a Goal's progress.
From the edit goal window, you can:
Even if the goal is public, private projects and Portfolios attached to the public goal will only be visible to people with access to that private project or Portfolio.
Adding or editing your company's mission statement
To add or edit an existing mission statement:
- Navigate to the Goals section in your sidebar
- Click on the Company goals tab
- Click on the mission
After writing down your mission, you can click Add to save it or Cancel. You can also add a title for your mission or leave the default title ‘Mission.’ Changes will be visible to your entire Organization.
Adding or editing your company’s mission statement can only be done by Organization Admins.
Track goal activity
Business and Enterprise users can identify the ways in which the goal has been modified, expectedly and unexpectedly, since its conception.
Activities are interactions that are recorded.
By scrolling to Activity on the left pane users can see a set of tasks that are being completed to accomplish the goal.
View a historical trail of changes in activity in order to:
- Conduct a look-back analysis
- Assess the process for blockers
- Forecast similarly shaped future goals
- Track the activity to inform decisions
In the left space users have room to write clear, well-defined, time-bound, measurable and attainable goals. The right pane gives you the opportunity to link parent goals and supporting work.
Editing your progress metrics
You can edit a goal's progress metric after setting it, including changing the metric type (ex. % to $), the initial value, and the target value.
To edit your goal’s progress metric, click on the drop-down arrow next to your goal header and select Edit progress metric.
From the next window you can; change the metric type, the number of decimals, the initial value, the target value or the current value.
Notifications
Notifications will be triggered for the goal owner and Collaborators when:
- The metric type and target value has been set for the first time
- The metric type or target value has been changed
- You are added/removed as the owner
- You are added as a collaborator
- Someone has liked a goal you own
- The date/time period of a goal you own has been changed
- The metric type and target value has been set for the first time for a goal you own or collaborate on
- The metric type or target value has been changed for a goal you own or collaborate on
- A goal status update is sent for a goal you are owner or collaborator on
Note that you never receive notifications for actions you took yourself.
Notifications will not be triggered if only the initial value or current value has been adjusted.
Request a goals status update
Users who are not the goal owner will now see an option to request a goal status update when visiting the goal’s detail page. This works the same way as requesting a project status update. When clicked, this generates a task for the goal owner that requests they update the goal.
Owners can post status updates (existing behavior), but will not see the option to request an update
Goal editors (non-owners) can post status updates and request an update
Updating your goal’s progress
You can update your goal’s progress at any time by clicking into the goal from your goals’ list view and selecting Update.
Goal Status Updates will allow you to give written context when updating the Status and Progress of a goal. With Status history, you can track the historical progress of a goal and provides a record for a goal’s progression.
Goal Status Updates allow you to:
- Communicate relevant insights when reporting on the Status and Progress of your goals
- Let goal stakeholders know when the Status or Progress metric of a goal they care about has changed and why, so they can make comments, unblock, take action, or report up as needed.
Click on Set a status to select the status of your goal.
In your Status Update, you can include:
- The progress of your goal using percentage
- A summary of how the goal is progressing
- What has been accomplished so far
- What is blocking the goal’s progress
- Next steps
You can then click Post.
Closing a goal
From the Update progress page:
You can close your goal at any time by clicking into the goal from your goals’ list view and selecting Update progress.
To select the status of a closed goal, go to Set a status. Select one of the options below the section Closed, and click Post.
Through the drop-down arrow next to your goal's name:
You can also close a goal by clicking on the drop-down arrow next to the goal name and selecting Close this goal.
From here select the desired status and click Save.
Goal celebrations
When a goal status is changed to a closed status: “Achieved” gets a big celebration (many creatures) “Partial” gets a small celebration (1 creature)
Deleting a goal
You can delete a goal by clicking the drop-down arrow next to the goal name and selecting Delete goal.
Goals privacy
Editing the privacy settings for a new goal
From your Team goals tab, click the Add goal button.
Enter your goal name and details and click Public or Private then click Save goal.
Edit an existing goal’s privacy settings
Click into the desired goal from your goal’s list view.
From here, click on the privacy icon in the top right corner.
Next, choose to make your goal Public or Private then click Save goal.
Editing an existing sub-goal’s privacy settings
You can change the privacy settings for your sub-goal by clicking into the sub-goal and clicking the privacy icon.
From here, click on the privacy icon in the top right corner.
Next, choose to make your goal Public or Private then click Save goal
For common questions regarding individual goal privacy, please see our Goals Privacy FAQs.
Goal comments
You can now comment under goals to ask questions, enable discussions, provide additional information or offer insight to anyone with access to the goal in question. Goal comments enable contextual communication and collaboration to all of those with access to goals. You can use goal comments to draft goals with collaborators and align on goals with stakeholders.
Comments on goals will appear at the bottom of your given goal included in the goal detail page.
Key use cases
Clarity of work
- One of the main benefits of using goals, over tasks or projects in Asana, is everyone in the company has a shared space, that defaults to the company level view of goals. This reduces confusion about "What are our goals and how do I find them" and they stay top of mind for you and your team.
Connects work to purpose
- Increases employee engagement and team motivation because teams have a clear understanding of how their work relates to company goals.
Helps teams understand what’s happening in the company
- See how teams are tracking toward their goals in real-time, to see if initiatives need course correction and to recognize good work.
Drives results
- Reduces worry that teams are working on things that aren’t strategic priorities by allowing teams to connect their goals to ladder up to company-level objectives.
Creates understanding around outcomes
- Tracking progress and status throughout the goal’s lifetime avoids the frustration of not understanding why goals were hit or missed at the end of the cycle.
For more information on how to use Goals, check out the Planning company goals: objectives and key results (OKRs). Looking for goal-setting best practices and ideas? Download a digital copy of our Asana Playbook to OKRs.
Goals FAQ
You can check out some common questions on Goals in our Goals FAQ article.
