In a Nutshell

Asana is project management software with powerful capabilities and a particularly robust free version. After a quick setup process, Asana users gain access to 4 different project views, over 100 integrations, and seamless collaboration across mobile and desktop platforms. Asana’s broad featureset, low cost, and free version make it great for businesses of all sizes but particularly useful for small and medium-sized business users.

Partner at a Glance

Top Features

Asana’s standout feature is its robust free offering. It gives up to 15 users access to its full project management suite, 3 of its 4 visualization options (list, board, and calendar), and over 100 third-party integrations. While none of these features are individually unique to Asana, the amount of functionality users receive for free is unparalleled in the project management software space.

Below, we go into some key features that make Asana’s project management platform so effective.

Projects and Tasks

Asana helps teams organize projects into tasks, which can then be assigned to specific team members. As a project manager, you can create projects, assign teams to them, and create relevant milestones (tasks) for those projects. Tasks are then organized into sections. By default, these sections represent progress on the task, eg. To-do, In Progress, and Complete. You can move tasks from one section to another using a visual drag-and-drop interface and create, rename, or delete sections as required.

Reporting

Asana offers fully customizable reporting, along with several pre-made reports to help you manage your team effectively. For instance, as a manager, you can pull a report with just one click that tells you the number of incomplete tasks by project. Or you can build your own report in the form of a column, donut, or lollipop chart. What’s more, your favorite reports can be grouped into a single dashboard for quick reference.

Rules

Rules enable process automation in Asana. You can apply them to any existing project to automate certain repetitive tasks. For example, one rule will automatically notify your entire team on Slack if a task’s status is set to complete. Another rule will automatically move tasks to a section of your choice if they’re close to their due date.

Forms

Forms enable team members to initialize projects in a standardized manner by asking common, repetitive questions that come up at the beginning of every project. The moment someone requests work from your team, you can send them a form to solicit some initial information. By default, the form will ask for names and addresses, but you can further customize it to request just about any information you need. For example, you can ask the assigning individual what the expected deadline for the project should be and what team they want to assign the project to.

Portfolios

Just as projects are broken down into a series of tasks for easy visualization, it is possible to view a group of related projects simultaneously by grouping them into a Portfolio. Portfolios enable two visualizations, list and timeline view, and allow you to see the overall progress of multiple related projects.

Visualization

Asana offers four visualization options—List, Board, Timeline, and Calendar:

List— Asana’s List view, which will be known to some project managers as a Sheet View, is a visualization format similar to a spreadsheet. Tasks are organized top to bottom on a sheet and categorized into sections.

Board— Asana’s Board view (which operates like a Kanban board) organizes each task into a box containing relevant information such as the task name, priority, and due date. These task boxes are then arrayed on a board that is divided vertically into sections.

Calendar— As you might expect, Calendar View organizes your tasks on a calendar based on their due date.

Timeline— Timeline view is Asana's Gantt Chart view. It is only available to those on paid plans. The Timeline arranges your project with dates along the top axis and sections and tasks on the left. Tasks are displayed according to their start and end date, which is great for visualizing relative lengths and expected completion dates for various project milestones.

Integrations

Asana boasts 100+ integrations for all users. Popular Asana integrations fall into the following categories:

Communication

• Slack
• Microsoft Teams
• MS Office 365
• Gmail
• Outlook

File Sharing

• Google Drive
• OneDrive
• Dropbox
• Sharepoint

Productivity

• Google Calendar
• Asana Chrome Extension
• Trello
• Jotform

Reporting

• Tableau
• Google Sheets
• Velocity
• Asana2Go

Security & Compliance

• Splunk
• Data Grail
• Transcend
• Exterro

Plans & Pricing

Asana has 2 paid pricing tiers, as well as a robust free plan. Pricing is available on a monthly or annual basis, with annual users receiving a discounted rate. Asana’s free plan, Basic, unlocks unlimited use of all the essential features, including project and task creation, multiple views, integrations with over 100 applications, and PDF or CSV exports for Asana projects. Although it has an impressive feature set, the Basic tier is limited to 15 users and does not offer reporting dashboards.

To unlock unlimited users and business analytics dashboards, users need to upgrade to the first paid tier, Premium. Asana’s Business tier unlocks advanced workflow automation options, including unlimited custom rules and dynamic forms, as well as project portfolios and goals.

*All values are per user, per month.

Ease of Use

Asana is user friendly and easy to get started with. On initial setup, you’ll be asked to enter your email, create a project for your team, and specify 3 tasks for your team to complete. The entire process takes about 2 minutes. It took us another 5 minutes to finish setting up the project by assigning team members to tasks, setting priorities, and creating a few sections (which can be used to divide and organize tasks into, for example, categories, workflow stages, priorities and more).

The user interface is very intuitive. You can switch between multiple visualization options with a single click and drag and drop tasks to different sections of your project. Creating and deleting sections is also a simple one-click process.

User permissions are set at the object level, and you can choose to bar users from seeing or editing certain tasks within a project. You can also control what teams and projects a specific user can access.

Asana is available in-browser, through a desktop app for Windows or macOS, or via a mobile app for iOS or Android devices. The mobile app features instantaneous live sync with the desktop version, so team members can collaborate seamlessly on any device.

Privacy & Security

According to Asana’s website, the company has a robust range of data protection features.

One such is password hashing, whereby your password is converted into a brand new string of characters, a process that is almost impossible to revert. The hashed password is the one saved in Asana’s system, so even if there were a security breach, a hacker still wouldn’t be able to access your original password.

Another important security feature is least privilege access. This means employees have access only to that part of Asana’s system they require to do their job, reducing the likelihood of a security breach.

Finally, through its Bug Bounty program, Asana provides cash rewards to members of the public who can breach its security systems in a controlled setting, bringing attention to security vulnerabilities.

Customer support

Asana has a robust self-service customer support system, the Asana Guide. The guide is a combined knowledge base, FAQ, and community hub. Customers can find step-by-step resources for common issues, connect with peers and Asana instructors in live webinars, watch video tutorials, and complete courses in the Asana academy. Users of the Premium tier and above can access Customer Success, a team of dedicated customer support specialists.

Bottom Line

Asana is powerful, affordable, and effective project management software. Any business user looking to optimize their project management processes will find value from this tool, but its low cost and robust free version make it particularly appealing for small- to medium-sized business users. Try Asana for free today to see how its project management tools can help optimize your team’s productivity.