So Many Tasks (and trying to not sub-task) solutions?

We use asana to move through large complex commercial real estate transactions (just started using Asana at my request) and I am trying to figure out the best course of action on setting up projects. If transaction “unicorn” is made into a project there may be 100 tasks that fall under the project Unicorn! even if I section it out, it will look daunting when going into the project. Solutions?

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Consider using Teams for the Project and breaking up things using Projects for phases of the transaction. It may make it cleaner. Always good to maximize your hierarchy use.

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I don’t have a solution for you but I do think Asana might consider making sections collapse-able. This might help in this and other situations where you could have an “Upcoming Section:” and “hide” tasks there on your primary list view.

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Ooh this is a meaty topic! Lots of potential here, @Heidi_Welch.

A few things come to my mind for you:

  • Template projects. I highly suggest that you create a template project for each transaction like this. It will liberate you from the repeated work of setting up a new project. (Of course, the key is finding a setup that works for you that you’ll want to create into a template. And that’s what we’re here to help you with. :slight_smile: )

  • Custom fields and/or Subtasks
    ** Subtasks will help make the visual less daunting for visitors to the project (and you). You could create a parent task and nest subtasks within it. The key will be to make sure you’re clear on which tasks have subtasks so things don’t get lost. You could even use a naming convention like ending each task title with [s] for subtask to indicate that there are subtasks within it.
    ** I actually might prefer custom fields for you, though. Sections with lots of tasks within can sometimes feel daunting and to @Richard_Bair’s point, we can’t hide sections. BUT what we can do is create custom fields in our projects and make the default project view as “view tasks by custom field.” When you do that, you can basically group things by custom fields. So, if your template is divided into 5 stages, you could use a custom field for process stage (stages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Then, just view the project by custom field, check off tasks in order, and hide custom field groups (effectively sections) if you don’t want to look at them.

    A helpful resource about custom fields:

Please let us know if you have follow up questions. Thanks!

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One question I have is, why don’t you want to use subtask? Subtasks (and sections within tasks to organise subtasks) is probably the best way to solve your problem.

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Is that a question for me, Paul? To clarify, I think the most powerful option would probably be to use custom fields and subtasks. I think the naming convention could be helpful in this case, since visitors to the project might not realize that subtasks exist within. However, I suppose that all depends on how well-versed the visitors are in Asana (i.e. inferring that there may be subtasks and looking within tasks to confirm).

We use sub-tasks now, and I do like and see the advantages… but also the disadvantages like, looking the Project Name when it appears on My Tasks, and parent tasks being marked complete and not realizing there are still outstanding sub-tasks. So I was looking for maybe a way to not use sub-tasks and yet keep my task list view limited. All champagne problems, but I thought if others have solutions I would love to hear them.

*losing the project name. I got typing too fast.

@Alexis is was a question for @Heidi_Welch.

@Heidi_Welch I see what you’re saying. Sometimes due to how Subtask are displayed you lack information, but I feel you’ll get used to them. In my opinion, it’s certainly the best way to organise things here (along with custom fields as @Alexis mentioned).

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What is the maximum # of teams you can create per organization?

I’ll look into this answer for you @Oscar_Rios.

The reason I ask (to any who know) is because this could be an alternative solution to the sub-task issue.

Good question! There is no maximum number for teams :slight_smile:

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