Asana Software Pros & Cons
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The business demand for efficient services and cost-effective operations continues to spur the creation of software and tools that provide the needed support to organizations. Among them is Asana, a tool used for team and personal projects. It provides teams a better solution when something more than efficient email exchange is needed. But is Asana worth it?
Table of contents
- What is Asana software?
- Top 3 Asana alternative software
- Asana use cases
- Cons or disadvantages of Asana
- Pros or advantages of Asana
- Ready to decide on using Asana software?
What is Asana software?
Asana is a cloud-based software that provides users a virtual workspace where teams collaborate for the completion of a project. It enables a project manager to create tasks as part of a big project, assign them to specific members, and schedule them with a deadline. Teams can collaborate on their tasks, such as posting comments for instant communication and attaching files for document sharing. Users receive notifications in their inbox about upcoming deadlines and the status of their assigned tasks. Asana is suitable for both long-term and short-term projects with the option to archive completed projects for future use. The work and project management software is ideal for both onsite teams and remote teams to help them organize their daily tasks.
Top 3 Asana Alternative Software
Depending on the projects your company or team are managing, Asana may not be the best fit to help you plan, execute, track, and deliver your project successfully. Here are the top options to consider for project management, issue tracking, collaboration, and coordination.
Asana use cases
A variety of businesses use Asana to take advantage of its features to fulfill their requirements. In using the software, each company experiences the advantages and disadvantages of Asana. But it is a matter of one group outweighing the other.
Team communication
Asana is a cloud-based productivity application capable of hosting real-time communication for multiple users. Instead of using emails for general announcements and another application such as instant-messaging tools for informal chats, the software handles both, allowing users to save time and cut costs.
Read also: Improve Organizational Communication with Project Management Software
Bug tracking
Bugs and issues are part of the business of product developers and service providers. To systematically track them, teams can create a ‘bugs project’ in Asana. It comes with online forms that allow non-registered users to submit their issues to appropriate projects. Teams can also create the issues on the platform when reported through chat or email, allowing team members to track and resolve them in an organized and accountable way.
General project management
Teams use Asana to break down projects into tasks and milestones. The PM assign the tasks to team members with due dates. Tasks can have a priority, so everyone knows what to work on first and who does what. Furthermore, they can break tasks into smaller sub-tasks to make sure each team member can work on a manageable portion of work.
Suggestion or request platform
Asana can serve as a digital platform for collecting suggestions and feature requests across the organization. The software empowers individuals to give their suggestion or make their request, but also streamlines the process for the project manager.
Applicant tracking
Although not specifically designed for HR, Asana is a flexible app that enables recruiters to use it for tracking their applicants. One approach is to create a project for a job position. HR assigns a task to every applicant under the project where they belong. The tasks have the applicant’s resumes while the notes field contains their cover letter and social links publicly available. Staff update the stage of each application by creating tags such as ‘for phone interview’ or ‘for onsite interview’.
Meeting management
Asana makes meetings easier to organize and handle. Users can create a meeting agenda where they can add notes on each item as the meeting progresses. After the meetings, managers can delegate follow-up tasks to respective participants.
Cons or disadvantages of Asana
Technology can be intimidating to non-technical users. Like any other technology tool, users have to deal with both the pros and cons of Asana, and then decide if adoption is worthwhile.
Overwhelming for new users
Experienced project managers find Asana useful and advantageous. However, new users can feel overwhelmed because of the number of features available. For new users to maximize Asana, they need onboarding training, which takes additional time and cost.
Too many features
In a nutshell, Asana is not suitable for small teams or single projects. The available options and capabilities can be a mismatch or overkill to a very basic project. Some users complain of decision fatigue when interfacing with the software.
Single assignee for tasks
Asana assigns a task to only one person to avoid confusion as to who is responsible. However, if the assigned person becomes unavailable, additional workaround is necessary to keep the work going forward.
No time tracking
Asana is a powerful tool for tracking projects, tasks, and assignees. The drawback is that it cannot track the time spent by the members working on their tasks. If teams need to bill different clients and categorize their work into billable and non-billable time, they would need to use another software for time tracking.
Limited exporting functionality
Oftentimes, project managers need to bring their files outside of the app. While Asana has this feature, it is only available in the JSON and CSV formats, and not in PDF or Excel formats.
Asana can function better, especially if it is integrated into third-party apps like Bridge24 for Asana. With this, Asana’s reporting and exporting capabilities are enhanced. However, for those who want to search for other software options, take a look at the top 3 software alternatives to Asana.
Pros or advantages of Asana
Asana has a lot of advantages that make it so popular.
Free plan
Project management software is important to all business sizes, including small and medium-sized businesses, but not all are willing to spend for it. Thankfully, Asana has a free plan where small teams on a tight budget can still have a capable PM software.
Variety of integrations
Asana can integrate easily with a number and variety of third party apps and software. This makes it easy to adopt to provide teams and companies a flexible and comprehensive solution greater than a single software can provide. It integrates with Salesforce, Slack, Dropbox, and Google Calendar, among many other categories of software.
Prioritization
One of Asana’s strongest points is helping businesses and organizations focus on being productive. This is why even the simplest assignment within a project has a label and a deadline, making it easy to track. The software supports transparency as well as alignment of projects to business goals.
Security
Asana has built-in admin controls for management of both internal teams and guests. It has permission and privacy controls, and enables project managers to lock down projects with comments-only permission, avoiding any unwanted edits. Enterprise users also have additional data security and team management controls.
Customization
Asana dashboards are highly customizable to allow team leaders to track each task separately. Users can also apply customization to the dashboard to track job applicants or customer queries, as well as create a workspace for group conversations.
Team collaboration
Asana allows people to invite co-workers, partners, and guests to a collaborative workspace. The workspace allows all to view tasks and projects. The Teammate view allows users to view tasks assigned to teammates to better understand their workload. Project members can see anything shared with them or with their organization that is publicly accessible.
Ready to decide on using Asana software?
Businesses continue to use Asana because of the many advantages it brings to teams and companies. It is a stable and reliable software that aids project management and boosts successful delivery. The pros and cons of Asana are not unique; no single software can provide all the answers to a business need. What matters most is that your project management and business need finds the perfect match in the software you choose.
