Asana – How to Create a Team

As one of the most popular web and mobile team organization apps, Asana heavily revolves around the concept of teams in each Organization. Teams are subsets of members in an Asana Organization. Each of the teams has its Members, projects, chats, and calendars.

If you are new to Asana, you probably want to know how to create a team on it. You probably have many other questions, as well. We hope that this guide will help you out.

How to Create a Team on a Windows, Mac, or Chromebook PC

First of all, there’s no desktop app for Asana. This means that there is no Windows, Mac, or Chromebook app/extension. So you’ll be accessing Asana via the browser from any desktop/laptop platform that you plan on using. Therefore, the method is identical across all three.

There are two ways to create a team on Asana, via the Admin Console and the Omnibutton.

Admin Console

1. Navigate to your Admin Console on Asana
   
2. Click the Teams entry, located on the sidebar in the left part of the browser
   
3. Select Create Team
   
4. In the pop-up window, add the team name, description
   
5. Then, add the members that you’d like to be in the team
   
6. Select the privacy settings that you’d prefer
   
7. Once you’re done, select Create Team
   

Omnibutton

1. Select the orange plus button (Omnibutton) in the upper-right corner of the browser
   
2. Perform the steps as outlined above

Can You Create Teams on iOS and Android?

Asana is a web and mobile app – it has responsive apps on iOS and Android and is accessed via the browser on desktop and laptop devices. Unfortunately, as of yet, there is no way to create a team using the iOS/Android app on your phone or tablet. However, a workaround exists. This involves accessing your Asana Organization using the browser on your tablet or mobile and switching to the desktop mode. This mode will show the website version intended for desktop.

Here’s how to access the desktop view on Safari and Google Chrome

Safari

1. Open the Safari browser
2. Select Request Desktop Website
3. Repeat the steps to switch back to the mobile version,

Google Chrome

1. Open the Google Chrome browser
   
2. Go to Asana.com
   
3. Tap the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner of the screen
   
4. Tap the checkbox next to Desktop site
   
5. Uncheck the box to revert to the mobile version of the site
   

Asana Tips for Teams

Now that you’ve successfully created a team or teams on Asana, you’re probably eager to get down to business. In that light, here are some tips for teams in Asana that are sure to help you boost your organization skills.

Task Naming

As essential as it may seem, task naming is an often-overlooked skill in team organization Here are some tips that will help you get started.

1. Start with a verb (Send, Consider, Fix, Implement, etc.)
2. Use sentence case (don’t capitalize the first letter of every word like with title case), as this will make the tasks easier to read
3. Be concise – you aren’t writing an essay but assigning tasks, which are best kept short and to-the-point

Turn Off Email Notifications

You may think that email notifications are benefiting your team. After all, if they receive a notification, they’ll know when the changes are made. And like any other organization-based software, Asana will notify you of any change that occurs. Emails will start piling up and team members will start disregarding the notifications.

Instead of this, encourage team members to turn the email notifications off altogether. They’ll be encouraged to frequently visit the Asana planning board and actually be more up-to-date with the work.

Today, Upcoming, and Later

In Asana, you organize your personal tasks under Today, Upcoming, and Later lists. Make use of these lists as they will make things much more organized. Asana has even assigned shortcuts for assigning entries to each of the three lists. Select an entry and select Tab+Y, Tab+U, or Tab+L, to assign the tasks to Today, Upcoming, or Later lists, respectively.

Use Other Shortcuts

In addition to the three mentioned shortcuts, there are various other that will help you navigate the Asana interface much quicker. Of course, you won’t remember and use every single one, but here are some that we definitely recommend.

1. Move task up/down – K/J
2. Archive – I
3. Delete selected task – Tab+Backspace
4. New Task – Enter
5. Quick add task – Tab+Q

Use the Mobile App

The mobile Asana app definitely doesn’t come with all the features of Asana on the desktop browser, but the app is definitely useful. There are both iOS and Android versions. When you’re away from your desk, you can refer to the mobile app to check on things quickly, add tasks, add comments, and so on.

Use Projects Sparingly

Organizing your work using the Projects feature on Asana is convenient, but if you start trying to find a perfect project for every single task, you’ll end up frustrated and wasting your time. Creating tasks, assigning them to people, and notifying team members are central when it comes to organization.

Encourage Your Team to Use Asana

Seeing as how you’ve already made your choice to use Asana for team organization, you should emphasize it. Now, new team members won’t really be too inclined to use Asana and learn about it. They’ll treat it as something they must use. In order to get your team members on board with this organization software, encourage them to create tasks.

Instead of creating a task in Asana for your team members, contact them via the team communication platform or in person and ask them to create a task for you and assign it to you. This will help your team members learn how to use Asana and improve team synchronization.

Recurring Tasks

In business, some tasks that need to be performed are one-offs. For instance, “Purchase this software license.” However, some tasks are recurring – for example, “Perform weekly standup.” Instead of creating a task for each week’s standup that occurs on the same day, and at the same time, you can make a recurring task that’s automatically created each week. Recurring tasks can be set to recur according to your needs and preference.

The Vacation Indicator

To avoid confusion and organization problems while you’re on vacation, your team members should know when you aren’t available. If you set your vacation indicator to Away, your co-workers will be able to see it at all times, which can help them focus on assigning the task to someone else. Avoiding confusion is essential in organization and planning.

Mention Projects

Yes, you probably know that you can mention people by using the @ sign and adding the user’s name after it. However, Asana also allows you to mention projects, as well. This creates a link to the project that you’ve mentioned, which makes navigation much easier. To mention a project, just type its first few letters after typing “@.”

Additional FAQ

How do I merge teams together?

You might think that merging two teams isn’t an available feature on Asana. But the developers have thought of this, enabling you to manage two teams together effortlessly. Just go to the task that you want to move, right-click it, and select Move to Another Team. Choose the team you want to move the task to, and you’re done.

How many teams are you allowed to have in Asana?

You can have as many teams per organization in Asana as you want to. However, the free version of Asana only allows for 15 members per organization. This limitation is something worth keeping in mind if you don’t want to pay for an organization platform.

How many projects can you have in Asana?

There isn’t a limit on how many projects you can make under a single Asana Organization. However, if the number of active projects goes into the hundreds, you can expect performance issues. Plus, a large number of projects can turn out very confusing.

Does Asana cost money?

There is a free version of Asana, as discussed before. However, the 15-people limit can become problematic at some point. The Premium version of Asana will set you back $10.99 monthly if you choose to be billed annually. If you choose monthly billing, Asana Premium costs $13.49 per month. The Asana Business plan is $24.99 a month if paid annually and $30.49 if paid monthly. Finally, there’s the Enterprise plan, but you’ll need to contact Asana to get the price quotes.

Is Asana good for one person?

Yes, even if you plan on using Asana for personal planning, you’ll get around it quickly, and it will prove effective.

Teams and Asana

Asana has various team-based management options, considering it is focused on teamwork and collaboration. We hope that the tutorial and tips that we’ve supplied here will help you navigate Asana seamlessly.

Have you found this article useful? Did you learn a bit more about Asana? If you have more questions, feel free to hit the comments section below. Fire away!