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Editor’s Note: This post is written by Richard Uruchurtu, Vice President of Operations at KlientBoost.

Easily connect Asana to a wide variety of cloud apps like Salesforce, Jira, HubSpot, Zendesk, Slack, Freshdesk, QuickBooks, Dropbox & such databases as MySQL, SQL Server, etc. From Skyvia cloud platform for data integration, backup and management. No special knowledge required, code free solution. Understand how your organization is using SaaS. Manage Your Client Lists with Asana for Better Results. There are other options that may suit your business better, but ideally, what a client management system in Asana will do is free you from the burden of tracking down client information in emails, notepads, and a variety of other platforms through which your team communicates. Asana is an all-in-one and go-to project management tool. This works great for remote teams; it has the mobile app as well that supports both the android and IOS operating systems. Here are some Pros and Cons that I noticed: Pros: 1. The free plan is great for startups.

KlientBoost is a digital marketing agency that primarily focuses on direct response and bottom of funnel marketing through PPC, CRO, SEO, and email marketing. At KlientBoost, we value visibility and communication, which is why we have an Asana project for each of our clients dedicated to the work being done for them. Clients can access this project as Guests, in order to stay up to date on any relevant communications or updates.

When we started using Asana to manage advertising campaigns for our clients, we had about 110 clients, or 110 projects in Asana. With Portfolios, we were able to get a bird’s-eye view of all of these projects at once to see which campaign checklists were on track, at risk, or off track.

With a Portfolio that large, we needed a way to quickly determine what was happening within each project at the task level. To get that level of holistic detail, we decided to utilize the Asana API in order to build reports to visualize our campaign progress and analyze the results. After building not one, but two, reports with the Asana API, here are our top three tips to help your team use the Asana API effectively.

1. Be very clear about your process

At KlientBoost, we use the Asana API to build reports for various parts of our business but the largest way we use it is to track the specific marketing strategies we are using for our clients. Each API report is slightly different, but for the largest report, it was critical for us to decide what we wanted from the report before actually building it.

The crux of creating a custom report is deciding which details and processes you care about before you sit down to build anything on the API. If you’re not clear about which processes you’re trying to build, you’re going to have to go back and constantly tweak or change the way you’re trying to look at data. Begin with the end in mind, which will help you have a very clear idea of what you want the inputs to be.

Visualizing data with an API report

The first report we created was exclusively for our designers, who build creative assets for our customers. The goal of this first report was to grab task data from all of our Asana projects in order to see how each designer’s workload was progressing across a large number of projects. Adding tags allowed us to go even further with our reporting, to the point where we could pinpoint specific data, like whether or not a creative test was successful. With this data, we were able to start answering interesting questions and adapting our process.

After seeing the benefits of custom API reporting for our designers, we decided to expand reporting for all KlientBoost Account Managers. This is the team that is pulling the levers to optimize our pay-per-click advertisements. Taking what we learned from the first API report we built, we decided to create a second, more robust reporting system, which we call BoostFlow (a branded term for our workflow process and a play on our company name).

Develop a system before creating an API report

Building our BoostFlow reporting was more of a thought exercise than a coding exercise. Before we could finalize this report, we needed a uniform system of how we would input data into Asana that would help us accurately judge the various data elements we wanted to view in reports outside of Asana. There were two main elements to clarify this process:

• First, we created custom fields in each project to track information—like an Account Manager’s strategy and a numerical value to “grade” the strategy’s impact. For example, being able to measure the impact level of the various ad tests running across different platforms would allow us to understand which Account Managers were the best at Google, Facebook, or Bing.
• Then, we developed a system to ensure these custom fields were being uniformly applied and used across our entire Account Management team. To do so, we held robust training programs with all of our Account Managers. For example, each task in Asana has an Impact scoreranging from -3 to +3. Many of our trainings focused on standardizing inputs for those scores. We also created space for the team to teach and uplevel the rest of the team.

2. Use custom fields—but don’t overdo it

Though we used tags in our first API report, we found custom fields to be an integral part of the BoostFlow API reports we use today, because they are a better way to standardize and capture data.

With custom fields (and training), Account Managers can standardize data across all projects. Then, when we pull information into our data visualization process, we’re able to understand what our Account Managers do on a granular level—with the minimum amount of manual work. We can look at trend lines for the aggregate company, for specific teams, specific platforms, specific ads—whatever we need. All with custom fields.

Having that custom field data is really great to visualize in the reports—but always think about what’s going to impact the user experience in Asana. If you have too many custom fields, you can’t see the task description in Asana. Simplicity is key.

3. Use tools to your advantage

It’s simple to access your Asana data using the API. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel—using tools makes it incredibly easy to pull the data out. Before you begin scripting, make sure you understand how Asana is structured between Teams, Portfolios, projects, and tasks in order to be able to make the correct API calls.

In the first API report we built, we pushed information out to Amazon AWS, and stored it in an Google spreadsheet. For our second API report, BoostFlow, we started with a tool called StitchData, which has a community connector for Asana. With the community connector, I was able to hook into the Asana API and push that data into BigQuery. In BigQuery, I could run a proper SQL query for the specific data I need. Then, I can push that data source into Google Data Studio to create our BoostFlow dashboards.

Onwards and upwards with the Asana API

KlientBoost began as a pay-per-click and conversion rate optimization business—so BoostFlow is optimized for that. But we’ve recently expanded into SEO, email marketing, and creative. BoostFlow was never designed to capture those types of services, and it limits the way we can interpret data for those services. So now we’re being really thoughtful once again about how to integrate these three relatively new services into BoostFlow in a way that makes sense. But with the API, I’m sure it’ll be no problem.

We’re inspired by customers like KlientBoost who are using Asana to achieve their missions. See what teams around the world are doing with Asana.

When you manage a business, you have a lot on your plate, from Client Projects to Marketing, Promotion to Administrative responsibilities, and everything in between. All of these responsibilities are simply too numerous to remember. Although many of you might love paper planners, it’s difficult to keep track of all of them, especially if you’re working with others in a team.

Luckily, you have Asana. It is a Project Management solution that works as a home base for all tasks required in running your business efficiently. Asana supports interactive Dashboards, Charts, Templates, and other features that make it so simple and easy to use for managing, organizing, and collaborating with your team members on a project.

In this article, you will be introduced to Asana Dashboards in detail. You will understand the easy steps to set up Asana Dashboards. This article also highlights the key features, charts, and templates used for Asana Dashboards Reporting. Read along to gain more insights into Asana Dashboards.

Table of Contents

• Key Features of Asana Dashboards
• Steps to Set Up Asana Dashboards
• Charts Used for Asana Dashboards
• Templates Used for Asana Dashboards

Introduction to Asana

Asana is a software service designed to manage, collaborate, track and organize work and teams. Asana was founded in 2008 by Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein. By centralizing your team’s work in Asana, this solution can assist your team to enhance job productivity, save time, and eliminate distractions.

A web browser or smartphone application is all that is needed to access Asana. It is available in both free and paid editions, with virtually limitless customization options available to its users. You can replace the clutter on your desk with Asana, a tool that consolidates everything you need into one place. Additionally, Asana may be used to monitor daily tasks as well as the overall goals and status of the project. In this way, potential risks and bottlenecks can be identified early on, ensuring that the project proceeds smoothly.

To read more about Asana, visit the official website here.

Introduction to Asana Dashboards

Asana has a configurable Dashboard to streamline Tasks, set Deadlines, and create Reports. It enables enterprises to increase their productivity and meet the needs of stakeholders. Asana Dashboards are Data Dashboards that highlight critical performance indicators linked to a specific project.

A project’s overall performance and progress can be tracked, or specific problems that require attention might be highlighted using Asana Dashboards. Including visual data in your Reports makes it easier for the reader to take in and understand the insights easily. You can use Asana Dashboards to do the following:

• Watch over the progress of one or more projects, and identify any difficulties that may arise.
• Track and report to the senior team members on progress made toward targets.
• Distinguish the most important pain issues for stakeholders by creating a problem statement or visuals.
• Develop a deeper understanding of your projects and learn about the project’s progress in its entirety.
• Bring your data to life and stay on top of the latest trends with data visualization services.

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Key Features of Asana Dashboards

In this section, you will explore some of the significant features of Asana Dashboards. To ease the Work Management process, Asana offers many capabilities. Some of them are listed below:

1) Customizable Dashboards

Users can create Custom Asana Dashboards that show the status of each participant and follow the progress of each activity independently. In addition, Leads, Customer Queries, and Applications can be tracked via the Asana Dashboards.

2) Unique Views

To view all of your tasks at once and prioritize them based on business needs, Asana stands out as one of the top platforms. One of the company’s unique features, Unique View, allows customers to prioritize tasks and receive push notifications.

3) Visual Themes, Charts, and Templates

Asana allows you to plan and organize your tasks using Visual Themes so that you can keep track of their progress. Additionally, it’s easier and faster to move a project forward when you use Charts. Charts help you to comprehend the distribution of tasks, provide a visual representation of information and measure your team’s progress.

4) Task Management

By using Asana’s fluid and dynamic Dashboards, members of all teams can quickly and easily create, assign, merge, and delete tasks. Using Lists, Boards, Calendars, etc., users may view their projects in a variety of ways and quickly follow the progress of each assignment over time. A thorough image of their project and the achievement of their aims are also made possible by the software’s utilization.

5) Secure Dashboards and Integrations

When it comes to projects and talks in the corporate world, Asana adheres to the strictest security standards to ensure its confidentiality. Meanwhile, it may be smoothly linked into a wide range of third-party services and apps, and work in concert with them.

Steps to Set Up Asana Dashboards

Now, that you have a basic understanding of Asana Dashboards and their key features, let’s discuss the steps to set up Asana Dashboards in detail. So, follow the steps below to successfully set up Asana Dashboards.

Step 1: Set Up your Asana Account

Before moving forward to create Asana Dashboards, you should have an Asana account. Follow the below steps to set up your Asana Account:

• Create a new account on Asana as shown below by visiting the official site. Note: If you want to sign up for Asana, you’ll need a business email address.

As soon as your account is ready to use, you’ll see a new workspace appear.

• Before adding projects and filling out your Asana Dashboards, you should add your team members. Each member of your team will receive an invitation to join your Asana Workspace by clicking the Invite People text in the left column and entering their email address as shown below.

Step 2: Create a New Project for each Area of your Business

In Asana Projects, Tasks are listed in a list format. Essentially, they are the main aim towards which you are working. To add Projects to your Asana Dashboards, follow the steps outlined below.

• Click the + icon next to Projects in the left menu to add a New Project to your workspace as shown below.

Instead of creating a separate Asana Project for each client project, you can build a single Project as illustrated in the example below.

Asana Client Access

• To get started, create a New Project. Let’s name it Workflows. Now, set it up as a Board on the site.

• Next, create a Column for each of your business operations. Add a Task for each step of the process in each column as shown below.

• Once your processes are defined, you can assign each task to a team member and add files and email replies, to each task.
• Next, you can color-code your projects for easy visual organizing. In the left menu, hover over the Project, click the 3-dot icon, select Set Highlight Color, and then choose from the possibilities as shown below.

Step 3: Add and Customize Tasks

Having created and color-coded all of your projects, it’s time to add and customize Tasks. As an example, here are a few ways you can modify each task:

• Assign Sub-Tasks: Assign Sub-Tasks by clicking on the person icon next to the task, as illustrated below.

• Add Tags: The process of Tagging tasks facilitates their classification into multiple groups. To add a Tag, click the three-dot icon at the top of the window, then click Tags. You may either select an existing Tag or create a new one, as shown below.

• Attach Photos and Files: Files from your computer and other file management sites like Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, and Dropbox can be added to Tasks and Sub-Tasks. Add new files by clicking the paperclip icon as shown below, selecting where you want to add the file from, and following the on-screen instructions.

Step 4: Keep Up with your Tasks

Asana Dashboards is ready to go to work for you now that your Projects and Tasks have been set up and assigned. Follow the steps below:

• Asana’s My Tasks tab allows you to keep track of all your forthcoming Tasks. You can change the order of the Tasks by clicking the gear icon at the top of the window.

• In the left menu, pick Team Calendar if you want to view everyone’s Tasks at a glance as shown below.

Hurray! You have finally set up the Asana Dashboards for your team.

Charts Used for Asana Dashboards

In this section, let’s explore various Asana Charts. Charts help you to quickly comprehend the distribution of tasks and provide a visual representation of information. Asana Dashboards provide 5 robust Charts for displaying and interacting with project data perfectly. Some of the Asana Charts are:

1) Bar Chart

Bar Charts assist you to keep track of what’s coming up and what’s past its deadline. To stay ahead of any unanticipated work, you can quickly examine the status of your team’s departments. Your team’s efficiency and possible bottlenecks can be identified by viewing Tasks by Section or Custom Field in Bar Charts.

2) Donut Chart

Donut Charts allow you to keep track of completed, incomplete, and late tasks, as well as Milestones and Approvals. For example, are your incomplete tasks a minor or a huge chunk of the pie in your project. You can also create a Task Priority Level that allows you to ensure that your team is spending its time on high-impact projects and not being overburdened with low-priority work.

3) Lollipop Chart

Lollipop Charts, also known as Assignee Charts that allow you to see how work is dispersed among your team. You can make sure your team members aren’t overburdened by knowing how much work is coming up and how it will be allocated among them. This information can be used to lobby for extra staff or contractors.

4) Burnup Chart

Burnup Charts allow you to keep track of how quickly your team completes tasks over a given period. This chart allows you to check the number of tasks completed or incompleted.

5) Numeric Rolls Up Chart

Numeric Roll-Up Charts allow you to add up numeric custom fields, such as budgets or predicted hours. If your project contains a number field, you can add it to this Chart to examine its value. As a result of these Charts, you can add a cumulative total to your data report based on the numeric custom fields in a given project. Whatever your custom fields are, they will be used to populate the Chart to provide a Roll-Up summary of the results.

Asana Clients

Templates Used for Asana Dashboards

Now, let’s discuss some of the significant Asana Templates. An Asana Project Template provides you with the building pieces you need to get started for Project Planning. Your Project Template may include parts such as Assignments, Task Tags, and more, depending on the application you use.

By “Plugging and Playing” with a Project Template, you can get a head start on your task. This way, you don’t have to start from the beginning or miss any steps – regardless of whether you develop your custom Template or utilize one created by Asana. Here are a few examples of Templates you can use:

1) Product Marketing Template

Product Marketing Managers have to balance a lot of tasks. Their Market Research informs product strategy, messaging, and positioning, as well as the introduction of new items to the market, among other tasks. Many times they serve as a de facto Project Manager for a product launch, coordinating efforts across the various teams involved in the launch, including Product, Marketing, and Creative.

So Product Marketing Managers can use Asana’s Product Marketing Launch Template to develop their plan instead of starting from scratch every time they launch a product. A Product Launch Checklist ensures that they don’t neglect any of the fundamentals like setting launch targets and developing a channel plan.

2) Content Calendar Template

To effectively manage a Content Schedule, you must keep track of several moving pieces. Every piece of content you create is a mini-project with clearly defined stages, from assigning work to writers to developing visual assets to coordinating reviews and copy edits.

Take use of Asana’s Content Calendar Template to keep your Content Production on pace. With this Template, you can write, modify, and publish all of your material in one spot, from idea to conclusion.

3) User Research Template

In the Product Development Life Cycle, User Research plays a key role. As Product Managers and User Experience Researchers learn about their clients’ requirements and ambitions, they unearth insights that lead to the development of totally new products. It’s easy to set Research goals and questions with your team using Asana’s User Research Template as it keeps your observations organized.

4) Work Requests Template

Works Requests are made in a variety of ways and formats and sometimes this process can lead to severe problems. Hence, you need a central place to track and manage requests if you want to ensure that none of them fall through the cracks.
Luckily, Asana provides you a Work Request Template. When you combine your Work Request Template with Forms, you’ll ensure that you’re getting all of the necessary facts when you ask for them in an organized manner.

5) Sales Plan Template

Creating a Sales Plan at the beginning of a Sales Cycle is not enough. Your Sales teams need access to a comprehensive, organized Sales Plan to build and maintain a solid foundation. It’s easy to keep track of your Sales teams’ objectives, target audiences, revenue goals, strategies, and any hurdles using Asana’s Sales Plan Template. This template will give you the structure you need to create each section of your strategy and help your team to save time.

6) Simple Project Template

Every Project Plan has a few basic aspects in common, even if no two are alike. Your Project Plan is structured by clear goals, deliverables, and deadlines. You can use Asana’s easy Project Plan Template if you’re not sure where to begin. All your Project Tasks are organized into Planning Work and Milestones, and the Priority Levels and Task Status are also easily visible.

To explore more Asana Templates, visit here.

Conclusion

In this article, you learned and understood the steps to set up Asana Dashboards. You also explored the key features, charts, and templates used for Asana Dashboards.

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Share your experience of understanding Setting Up Asana Dashboards in the comments section below!