I was excited to use the new Templates function, but see that it goes ahead and creates a task for the Task Owner in My Tasks before it is turned into a project and clutters up their Task list. Is there any way to have task owners assigned in the template without it moving to My Tasks until you create a project? When I deleted the template all of the tasks remained for my team and it took and hour to clean up. It is just easier for me to copy a project at the time we start our process if this is how itâs going to work.
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Hi Tawney
Iâm not sure I completely understand what youâve described, but I wonder if it might be to do with assigning tasks in the project before you saved it as a template. As youâve probably noted, when you create a template, all youâre really doing is creating a project, then making that project available as a starting point for anyone thereafter. So, whatever you set up in that original template project will form the basis of all new projects using that template.
If youâve created a project, assigned all the tasks, then saved it as a template, that original template project will stay where it is in your projects list, and all of those tasks will remain assigned to whomever. If you then create an entirely new project using the template that youâve saved, youâll now have one new project, plus that original template project, which hasnât gone anywhere.
So, I would de-assign all of the tasks in that original template project, which will make them disappear from peopleâs My Task lists, and just assign tasks from scratch every time you create a new project from the template.
Does that make sense? I donât even know if Iâve understood youâre original problem, so please forgive me if not!
Mark
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You described the problem perfectly. Assigning all of the tasks is a very time consuming process for this project template. It seems like itâs just easier to copy a project with the assignments at the time we need it rather than go through the whole process of re-assigning 100+ tasks in the template then create a new project. It would be very nice for the user if you could save the assignments in the Template but not have it populate My Tasks until a project is created.
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I see what you mean. Unfortunately, I canât see a way around that. I guess it depends on how you have your template set up. Could you possibly group tasks by assignee, so that itâs easier to select and assign multiple tasks once youâve created a new project? That takes the sting out of it a bit.
The only other solution I can think of (just off the top of my head, so this might be rubbish) is to use tags. You tag each task with the relevant assigneeâs name, then everyone could create a search for all tasks associated with their tag that have no due date, select them all in one go and assign them to themselves en masse.
Thatâs all I can come up with, unless anyone else has anything. 
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I have one more solution. We do it in our team. Move all the tasks to the âLaterâ section of âMy Tasksâ. All these tasks are then automatically grouped by project and is collapsible. This gives you an option to somehow hide the tasks from a template project but still know that they exist and in case you need to reassign them to someone else, you know where to find it. 
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Nice! Thatâd do it. 
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Thanks Allen and Mark, I used that hack this morning and I think it will work for us. I will still make a product suggestion to Asana on this, not sure if anyone else would find this annoying.
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@Tawney_Pierce â Weâll note your feedback around template tasks assigned to you not showing up like actionable ones
We use @LenSantosâs suggestion here at Asana to move these non-actionable, template tasks to âLaterâ.
This gets them out of our My Tasks, but keeps us assigned for easy copying / actioning of future projects.
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We are just getting started with Asana & I had the same issue as @Tawney_Pierce for some new workflows I was trying to setup for our users. In my case, I ended up creating (& favoriting) Advanced Searches for myself and I excluded those Templates & their corresponding Projects until I am ready to roll them out. If you are always working in real-time with people that are all equally comfortable in Asana, the current template functionality might be fine-- but if you have someone trying to dole-out work-flows for others via templates, it does seem to make âclutterâ in the Tasks.
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I agree Angie, I had to go and move all the assigned tasks for my team from âNew Tasksâ to âLaterâ because they arenât that proficient in Asana and I am the one assigning team tasks.
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We would like to see this functionality implemented as well. Seems like there should be logic that if a task is assigned in a template then it does not show up in a userâs task list. Sure you can rearrange them to âhideâ them but it would be nice if this was handled by the software vs various workarounds.
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The functionality to suppress tasks that are assigned in a template from showing up in My Tasks needs to be added. Otherwise, you get team members marking template items as complete which messes up the template.
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100% agree. Templates should be treated completely separate than projects.
A template is a projectâs preset format that eliminates having to recreate it each time itâs used. There are no actionable tasks and shouldnât be mixed in with project tasks.
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Can a generic or department-specific user be created and associated with Template tasks? When we create templates, we donât know exactly who will be assigned the task. We do know it will be someone in âSalesâ or âOperationsâ or âFinanceâ. When the template is used to create an actual project, we would change the generic user assigned to actual users. Possible?
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@Carol_Dapogny â Not possible right now. But you could add a custom field drop down instead! You might name a custom field âDepartmentâ and add drop down labels like Sales, Operations, and Finance. Hope that helps!
For those who think template tasks should not show in My Tasks, make sure to upvote this thread!
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I completely agree. This needs to be sorted out as soon as possible as itâs not logical for any tasks in templates to show up in a to-do list. It creates confusion and makes the entire flow ungainly and cluttered
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I have just switched my team to using Asana and we are really utilising this feature of templates a lot.
Really surprised to see that template tasks appear in My Tasks - it makes no sense! Very confusing and not good for encouraging Asana use with a team new to it by having to hacks like hiding in Later. What if we want to utilise Later for what itâs intended for?
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I just wanted to add to the chorus of voices who are saying that this functionality is necessary for templates to be useful to our team. Iâve upvoted the product feedback request as well.
Asana team, please hear this feedback and implement it into your product.
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Yeah, this is crazy. I am in the process of setting up Asana and I have already broken templates I just created. Explaining to my team that a template shows up in tasks is just embarrassing. I was hoping this would be a good alternative to Jetpack Workflow but I am not so sure that is going to work.
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