Asana Reviews

Pros

Keeping track of the projects that I am working on and the deliverables that are needed for marketing projects is incredibly helpful - especially the calendar option!

Cons

It took a while to become accustomed to the process and I really had to take a moment or two to figure out how to make this tool work the best for our team.

Pros

It's much more simple than other alternatives, it's easy to use, and has a great design and good features, especially for to-do lists and task management.
It's competitive in terms of price, and it's a good value for money.

Cons

It lacks functionality, and I'm not sure that it's a good fit for companies that are looking to scale up.

Alternatives Considered

Jira and monday.com

Reasons for Choosing Asana

We made a company decision to move all teams to the same product.

Switched From

Jira

Reasons for Switching to Asana

It was very easy to use and integrate and the overall performance was good enough to adopt it at the time.

Pros

- Being able to create rules and automations- Task creation window - Animations and stickers to show gratitude when a task is completed

Cons

- UX is poor, it's too complex and always a window within another window which is distracting- Task hierarchy is too simple, doesn't allow for much flexibility- The different project views are not optimized - you can't edit the view based on your needs - Notifications are confusing

Pros

I've used the Asana solution to manage several projects over the course of my career. From experience, I can say that this tool guarantees ease of use, allowing me to delegate tasks and track the progress of my team's work without getting in the way. The software enables my staff to meet deadlines for the completion of activities. In short, thanks to this online project management and collaboration solution, we've been able to increase our productivity.

Cons

Despite all the good things I think of the Asana management tool, I find that its interface could be less cluttered with options, as this aspect often poses difficulties for my team members. Indeed, my collaborators have difficulty finding and using some of the platform's specific functionalities.

Pros

Asana was selected in our organization because it provides a good balance between out of the box capability and is configurable without death by configuration. For daily task management, it has been a big hit with our team, with multiple additional departments requesting access early in the roll-out plan to manage their daily work. For our projects, it improved visibility of progress and has contributed to a better defined / more predictable project plan and outcomes.We've also had several positive interactions with the product team by participating in early releases on new features that were important to our company.

Cons

We've had a few challenges:* Translating our project management templates into Asana required significant rework to find the right level of task detail without micro managing every activity* There is no short unique identifier on individual tasks. It makes it hard to talk about the work that is captured in Asana in our development process.* Account team is not stable and only cares about upsell. We've worked with several people already in the first year+ of use. With each replacement, an intro call is arranged to talk about what we as the customer can do for them in terms of buying more licenses. * Pricing was not transparent with a bit of bait and switch. Volume discount provided to win our business was removed in the first renewal. Take it or leave it attitude from account rep leaves us with an incredibly bad taste in our mouth.

Alternatives Considered

Jira and Teamwork.com

Reasons for Choosing Asana

Previous tool reached end of life

Reasons for Switching to Asana

Jira - Needed add-ons to achieve portfolio review capability that we neededTeamwork - Enterprise security and SLA was lacking

Pros

Task management, Project management, and Team management are my favorite features. Setting due dates in a task and adding subtasks makes it very much user-friendly. Calendars and Files features per task make it much more advanced than other project management tools.

Cons

Asana desktop application sometimes crash and that's why I use browser-based Asana only

Pros

Assigning tasks and adding collaborators is a very good feature, and only collaborators can view and respond to the task. The calendar and Goals feature makes it outstanding. I love using Asana desktop software which is very much fast and reliable.

Cons

Asana desktop edition sometimes crashes.

Pros

I liked the platform's ability to create and manage tasks with ease. The task creation process is simple and straightforward, allowing me to assign tasks to team members and set due dates quickly. The ability to attach files and add comments to tasks has greatly improved our collaboration process so that everyone is on the same page and has access to all the necessary information.

Cons

Nothing to complain about so far. The tool has greatly enhanced my team's productivity and efficiency

Pros

Stopped using post-its, Asana helps tracking my to do lists

Cons

It is not intuitive, I need to create new tasks for everything instead of letting me add new items to one task

Alternatives Considered

monday.com

Reasons for Choosing Asana

Same problem with asana, I need to create new tasks every time

Switched From

Things

Reasons for Switching to Asana

price, Monday needs a higher suscription

Pros

Asana has become my go-to project management tool, transforming the way my team collaborates and executes tasks. The platform's intuitive design makes it easy to create projects, assign tasks, and track progress seamlessly

Cons

The task management features are robust, allowing for detailed descriptions, due dates, and file attachments. The ability to create subtasks and dependencies ensures that complex projects stay organized. The Kanban-style boards provide a visual overview that's both insightful and aesthetically pleasing.

Pros

Asana has been integral to our business in the last few years -- the platform allows for robust content / project management. We are a small design and web development agency, and we're finally able to track our projects from first inquiry to project close. Asana has been an amazing tool for keeping our processes efficient and transparent, and we've set up teams shared with some clients so that they too can be aware of our progress on their projects. We've also been doing all this using the free version -- we briefly tried a demo of the paid tier, but we found that for our small (and somewhat change-averse) team, the free version has virtually everything we need.

Cons

There are some elements of Asana that are surprisingly inflexible -- we'd love to have more color options to differentiate our projects and tags, rather than having to use the same 16 colors, for example. And the email notifications are not great -- they send more than is necessary, and they're not very customizable. Asana's customer support team is responsive, but all the requests we have appear to also have been in the request queue for years.

Alternatives Considered

Jira and Trello

Reasons for Choosing Asana

We needed a more robust tool that would organize our work by client/project, allow us to have conversations and share feedback, and keep a clear trajectory of each project and which team member was accountable at any point in time.

Reasons for Switching to Asana

Asana felt more robust and better for a larger team than Trello. Jira felt more aligned with agile development, which is not the majority of our work.

Pros

Asana provides a solid interface that empowers me as a manager to manage more team members more efficiently. This software provides time-saving resources by allowing stakeholders to get their own project updates and track the project's progress without interrupting the team executing the project.
It provides:
- Many ways to plan and manage
- A clear view of the task load on each team member
- Time planning to keep projects on deadline

Cons

Asana provides so many ways of doing things that every person who sets up a project can do so in a unique way. This requires a clear organizational strategy from the start.
The issue:
- Multiple ways of achieving the same outcome
- Confusion on how to work within different project structure approaches

Important to note: These cons are primarily a result of poor onboarding. They are not the fault of the software or ASANA directly. My encouragement is for anyone implementing this project to plan and test projects with a very small number of team members. Only once the entire organization can be trained to create and manage projects according to your prescribed workflow should the software be opened up. You must engage with ASANA's guides early. As well as plan and provide training every employee to see the best ASANA experience.

Alternatives Considered

Basecamp and monday.com

Reasons for Choosing Asana

Our previous software for project management had an extremely limited tool set.

Switched From

Basecamp

Reasons for Switching to Asana

The freemium approach made it easy to try. Once we dove into it and built several projects. We saw success. It was a no-brainer to continue forward with the product. We onboarded everyone very quickly (too quickly) and saw immediate gains in productivity and morale. There is much satisfaction to be gained by checking of tasks and seeing how much you accomplished each week.

Pros

Using Asana made it possible to create a repeatable process that anyone on my team can follow and implement. That means that we're able to scale rapidly and bring on new clients without panicking that we won't be able to handle the new workload. We absolutely love that each client is managed via their own project, and within each project we have their entire podcast calendar mapped out for the year ahead. This is essential so that we can plan team workload, and know when to hire.

Cons

The only thing I wish was available is a calendar view for each project that lists subtasks. Since each client has a primary task for each episode, and sub-tasks are listed underneath that, it would be great to use the drag and drop feature for subtasks easily in one view for that specific project.

Alternatives Considered

Trello

Reasons for Switching to Asana

I really like the UX of Asana over other project management tools

Pros

Asana is undoubtedly one of the most significant project management tools available. I appreciate that you can not only establish a project and delegate subtasks to coworkers and designate deadlines. This guarantees that everybody understands their roles and when their obligations are due. Additionally, the task dependencies feature facilitates workflow by allowing you to identify a job as awaiting completion of another. This feature helps keep complicated projects on track by ensuring that the excellent work is completed on time and that no job is holding the project back. Timelines, bespoke layouts, and custom fields are also appealing to me.

Cons

My company has been using Asana for over 2 years, and it's been nothing but phenomenal for us. It's been fantastic all around, dramatically increasing my team's productivity by making our team communication simple. In all honesty, I can't think of anything negative to say about Asana. It is simply outstanding software.

Pros

I used Asana for 1-2 years while I was working on a Social Media Agency. It helped me a lot to organize my team. I was able to track all the tasks in their differents stages and also I could know the workload of every member of my team.
Also I integrated Asana with my Gmail and created tasks from there, very easy and quickly.

Cons

When I started using Asana, I had trouble copying and pasting images directly from the email body. Then when they achieved integration with Gmail, this was resolved.
Also, email notifications were quite annoying until I learned how to disable them. Maybe they could add a feature to only send email notifications for important tasks.

Alternatives Considered

Trello

Reasons for Switching to Asana

Because it was easier for the whole team to understand how it works. The visualization of the tasks is friendlier than the Trello cards.

Pros

Asana has a number of templates and various different ways to manage and execute projects of different natures. For example, I use and always suggest to my clients that they use a weekly meeting templates where the sections match the various business operations such as marketing, operations, accounts, warehouse, etc. This allows items for discussion to be addressed in the weekly meeting and then allocated to the projects and individuals for execution. It's great for collaborating and ensuring that everyone in a team nails their dealings.

Cons

I do find it a bit pricey for smaller businesses, especially when handling multiple clients/projects from a single account and each project needs to be private. It's too expensive for freelancers or small agencies.

Alternatives Considered

Trello and monday.com

Reasons for Switching to Asana

I had previously worked in Asana so it was easy for me to grasp. I also need to train my clients how to use it so it is imperative that I have a thorough understanding of the products I implement for them.

Pros

The fact that I can manage my daily tasks seamlessly both on my desktop computer and on my iPhone mobile application.

Cons

Sometimes the copy and paste function doesn't work as I would like it to to take a similar task, copy it and then modify it. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong.

Alternatives Considered

Wrike

Reasons for Choosing Asana

To be honest, Trello was having a server issue one day and I was locked out from seeing my tasks and I felt lost that day. I immediately switched to Asana which I had also used in the past but it wasn't yet my main daily task manager.

Switched From

Trello

Reasons for Switching to Asana

I really like the layout of the tasks management section both on the web browser and the Mobile application. Mainly I like the tasks being organized in a vertical fashion in Asana as opposed to the card fashion in Trello which I didn't like as much.

Pros

The ability to bring in all members of a team and see the workflow from conception to completion is why Asana is the best for project management software. Integration of tasks, files and prioritized milestones are all top of the line here.

Cons

The financial side of things are better managed with third-party software, as the interface can be less than intuitive at times, but the good news is that the Asana customer support team is excellent if you have questions about integrating bookkeeping software.

Alternatives Considered

Basecamp

Reasons for Choosing Asana

Asana has more features, is better suited to mobile device support and is much better for scaling up from one or two users to dozens or even hundreds of users.

Switched From

Trello

Reasons for Switching to Asana

Price point and mobile device support was in Asana's favor.

Pros

I really love that that i can manage my team task and project collaboration to be more organized and quickly tracking the project progress percentage. The timeline for the project can be set ahead of time so we won't missing the due date for the project. Repetitive daily task also one of the best feature that can be done with this software.

Cons

I need to use other solution for managing a complex project, as Asana can only handle a basic project and missing feature like project budgeting and project timeline. Some of the tools is too confusing too us, and i had abandon it completely as i can find workaround to make it work, even after contacting for a support from customer support.

Pros

Over the years, with one exception (see below) Asana has proven to be able to evolve with the times and add features while sticking to its core purpose & values. I love the integrations that are available, all that is included in the free tier, the heavy emphasis on keyboard shortcuts and the mobile app. The key feature for me was its ability to manage multiple workspaces with ease.

Cons

Honestly, I love Asana. I have used it for keeping track of my life (personal and professional) for years but there's one thing that happened this year that is a rather large pain point for me and many of its users, judging by their community forums. Every time you switch to a new workspace, it opens in a new tab. This sounds small, but it's HUGE when you're always switching back and forth. I used to use it as a web app (without the browser chrome) so it behaved like a native desktop app. Now, as soon as I open a new workspace, it launches the browser and opens in a new tab. There's no option to disable this new "feature" and the community has spoken. Here we are almost a year later and no explanation or solution has been given (the last time I checked). Boo. That's why I docked ease of use. Also, it's starting to feel a bit heavy on my tablet. Desktop performance is still OK but does take a while to load.

Alternatives Considered

Jira, Teamwork.com, Trello and Basecamp

Reasons for Choosing Asana

I've tried many "project management" tools for myself and in organizations. None of them really stuck. Asana is the closest I've come to something everyone can be onboard with.

Switched From

Basecamp

Reasons for Switching to Asana

Honestly, a good bit might just be familiarity at this point. That and the available integrations, and what can be accomplished on the free tier if I'm in a situation where there's no budget for a paid solution keeps me recommending it over the others.

Pros

I love that I can assign myself personal tasks to complete, and that I can also assign others tasks or subtasks to help me move forward with the pieces of a larger project or event that I need them to do before I can move on. This is a great software for organizing teams that can't always meet in person. We are able to coordinate across campus and ensure communication on progress is easily managed in one spot. I also love that I can set reoccuring tasks for things that must be completed monthly (like accounting exports, payroll imports, board reporting, etc.) It helps keep me on track to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

Cons

I don't like that you can't quickly and easily see all of your completed tasks in one spot with the task yet to be completed. I wish I had this feature so that I could better weekly report on what was accomplished while also reporting on what is coming down the pipeline. One of the only other things I don't like is that when you go to mark a task complete, and you are marking multiple, sometimes the list updates and shifts a bit so you click on the wrong one. You can click undo, but I just wish it didn't shift the items while it was refreshing the to do list.

Pros

It's quite easy to use and it has helped me a lot to keep track of my daily tasks. I find it very satisfying to complete the tasks right after i finish them. It is also handy for the management team to review everyone's tasks and how they're doing at the end of the day. It has already got essential features for task management even in free version, but I'd love to go premium later.

Cons

I hope it could provide more features like insights and trends in free version. But it is still okay to see the general insights of your work.

Alternatives Considered

Trello

Reasons for Choosing Asana

Asana is more easy to use and looks better.

Switched From

Trello

Pros

Before using ASANA, we seem to always be saying were is that file again? or I can't find that in my email? With ASANA we can organize, and simplify many tasks while also keeping everything in the same, nicely designed, place. The interface is relatively easy to navigate, and just takes some playing around to understand. Also, ASANA has a great app so its easy to have everything you need always at hand.

The projects with a board view helps us layout research studies. When starting a study, having a board view really helps us see The big picture. We create columns for Design and Preparation, Recruitment, Measures ect. and layout major tasks with subtasks underneath.

ASANA simplifies the process of writing letters of recommendation. Research assistants can create a task that lays out in subtasks the information, and files their letter writer will need, assign the task to their letter writer and set a due date.

ASANA also allows you to have a workspace for work and personal. This is great because I can keep all of my to-do's in one software.

Other great features: you can have ASANA create tasks from your email, tasks can belong to two projects, tasks/projects can easily be copied.

Cons

Premium features are not worth . They don't significantly improve the functionality, and are not worth going. The only draw is the free account only allows 15 members. ASANA should offer a cheaper subscription for teams who just need more than 15 members, but are not interested in the cost of the premium features.

Here are some things that need work
1 Can't assign a task to more than one person (huge drawback)
2 Communicating on ASANA isn't the best. Most teams also use messaging services, like Slack for all communication. For us this has been a problem, because sometimes we can't remember where a certain conversation took place, on Slack or ASANA. It would be nice to have ASANA fully integrated with a messaging platform, so conversations about projects are in one or both places.
3 The calendar is honestly confusing. Always unsure if I add a due date to a task, if it will show up in the calendar or not-not very intuitive. Also, calendar should have different views for personal task dates, and team dates.
4 Files added to tasks are dead, meaning if you edit the file you need to upload the new version. It would be nice to have it integrated with cloud services so the file auto updates.
5 Can't communicate between tasks/projects on other workspaces or be able to copy a project to a new workspace.
6 Board view can get cluttered, so having projects within projects could help with larger projects.

Pros

Asana is extremely easy to implement in an office. The design is clean and intuitive and feels very familiar and easy to use from Day 1. Love the ability to create tracking boards or lists, depending on what my need is; and the ability to switch between both of these views is a huge plus. The animations are a delight. Love the Chrome and Gmail plug-ins, I use those multiple times a day.

I liked Asana so much that I implemented it at home to keep our family on track and organized.

Cons

I wish there was the ability to personalize the skin of the app more -- different backgrounds for the desktop, stickers. I also wish that Asana could integrate with electronic planners to replace their to-do list function.

Alternatives Considered

Trello, Basecamp and Microsoft To Do

Reasons for Choosing Asana

Wunderlist did not have the data parsing power we needed. Asana is so much more flexible and customizeable!

Pros

As a Project Manager at a mid-sized software company, I HAVE to have a big picture overview of all work being done: who is doing what, when the deadlines are, and when tasks are completed and approved. And, I need to be able to see what's going on from anywhere at any time. Before we started using Asana, it was incredibly difficult to track all of our projects and I used several data silos to manage all of the details. Asana was a life saver for me because not only does it allow me to see all of the work/tasks assigned to individuals, but my team uses it to communicate with each other - and I can view all of their communications for reference as needed. We also use the integration with the time tracking software, Everhour, and it worked really well for us. The dashboard and reporting functionalities are extremely easy to read, and give a great overview of progress. The free version is an incredible platform on its own, and upgrading to premium is extremely reasonable considering all of the extra reporting functionality you receive. This is a great program for companies that need a simple and intuitive solution for managing projects that require high communication and fast results.

Cons

It would be nice if the interface was more customizable for the purpose of displaying data in ways that would be most helpful for each individual user. Currently the display (of projects and task lists) is fairly inflexible, but, it's very easy to use. Asana does not have gantt charts or any micro level management tools used for budgeting, which is why I recommend using Asana for the communication and deadline aspect of projects, but NOT for carrying out PM responsibilities required for most successful projects.