Converting workspace into organization - worth it?

Hi guys. I’ve been using Asana to run my small company for a couple years as a “workspace”. We’ve reached a point where we’re thinking of converting into a “organization” primarily due to the team tabs feature. I have 3 questions:

  • is there any pro/cons to converting into an organization? All I can see about an organization is what I’ve read or the same screen-shots which don’t indicate much aside from splitting members into teams and projects.

  • when searching for this topic in the community, I’ve noticed a few people who converted into an organization and freaked out, asking for help to turn it back into a workspace. What really changes? Why do people want to go back? Again, from what I’ve seen there doesn’t appear to be much differences between the two - can someone please fill me in?

  • Once you’re in an organization, it appears that anyone can remove anyone from the organization and projects. Does this mean there are no admins? And anyone can remove their superiors?

Thanks in advance!

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Hi Sean,

In my company we very quickly converted our workspace to an organization because we needed to have the team feature.

From my experience I see more positive points having an organization because:

  • With teams, you can split for instance R&D, Marketing, Finance,… each team having its own projects. Nevertheless, someone from team A can be a member of a project owned by team B. In that case, you see only the project you have been given access to.
    With workspace you could also split teams by using different workspace, but if I remember well you can’t manage transverse project as within an organization.

  • With an organization, all the tasks assigned to you in every project from your team or owned by another team, fall into the same MyTasks.

Concerning admin role, they appear only with Premium or Enterprise version. If you’re using the free version, then yes everyone can remove another member. With Premium, only admin can do that.

Don’t hesitate if you need more info on organization.

Julien

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Hi Julien, thanks for your detailed response.

  • In our current workspace we have two projects: editorial ideas, and editorial production. Once a topic (card) in ideas is approved, we move/copy it to production where it goes through a kanban board - to do, doing, done. In an organization, can you copy a task from one team’s project’s to another? Example, the marketing team wants to create an article, so from one of their projects their move/copy it to the editorial team’s production board.

  • we’re under the free version so we’re allowed to have up to 15 members. If we invite a client as a guest, does that count towards the 15 people?

Thanks!

Within an organization, yes you can still move a task from one project to another.
But if the 2 projects belongs to 2 different teams, then:

  • you need to be a member of both teams
  • OR you need to be at least a member of both projects
    so that you see the origin project and the destination project.

An organization is linked to a domain. If a client has another email adress, then it will not count towards the 15 people. @Marie do you confirm that point?

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I just checked in my organization, and I confirm that external email members don’t count towards the limit of members.

Thanks Julien, you’ve been very helpful. I was just wondering if you had any insight on one of my original questions - why does it appear some people desperately want to revert their organization back into a workspace?

I’ve made a quick search and I don’t find a lot of people asking to come back to workspaces: can you share a link to one of those topics?

If you have a common email domain, I think organization are much more flexible because you can still separate work by teams, but in addition you can collaborate between teams. On the contrary you can’t collaborate between workspaces.

If you currently have only one workspace for the whole company, then with organization you’ll be able to split the work by team. Besides, you’ll be able to have team conversation or project conversation.

If you’re Premium, you can create hidden team or private team or opened team, what can be very useful. For instance you can have an opened team to the whole company to share common information.

Julien

Yes @Julien_RENAUD you’re 100% right regarding the Guest policy! :+1:t3:

As for converting an Organization into a Workspace, I agree with you too; this is not something we usually recommend, as Organizations offer way more options and flexibility than Workspaces.

I’ve shared the steps to convert an Org back into a Workspace in the following post if you want to check it out: Help! Need to Convert Organization Back to Workspace! - #3 by Marie

As always, let me know if you have follow-up questions!

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Interesting idea, so does that mean that if I have 15 members with the organizational email address, and 1000 people with gmail, I will be allowed to use the free version of Asana?

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thank you @Marie for the instructions to convert back.

I don’t think we are answering @Sean_Bassi question in regards to WHY people want to switch back.

I have a workspace I just started with one of my teams and want to also understand the cons of Organizations from someone who has switched back to Workspaces

When possible I would always recommend using Organisations as they’re a lot more flexible and powerful than Workspaces. If you’re interested to learn more about the pros and cons for each type of space, I’d recommend checking this article from our Guide: Asana FAQs and common questions | Product Guide • Asana Product Guide

No because on the free version they count both members and guest towards the limit of 15 users.

I stand to be corrected (anyone?) but it would appear that you would only need to pay for 2 premium seats in an organisation, in order to have 1000 with people with gmail as guests.

Yes indeed

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@Shapeofwater,

Your approach with teams sounds just right to me.

I couldn’t offer any more feedback without knowing much more about the details of your departments and workgroups, transient or permanent, which are potential groups of folks to consider for teams. But I believe you are on the right track, and unless your existing teams become laden with too many un-archived projects to get your arms around, no further additions may be required.

Thanks,

Larry