Ready to take your team’s productivity to the next level? In today’s Asana review, we’re going to introduce you to one of the most popular and intuitive project management solutions that will help you to do just that. Asana is by far one of the best-known project management apps around.
It’s brimming with intuitive features, from multiple view modes for projects, to task management tools, time tracking capabilities, a unified inbox, and workflow automation capabilities. It’s also quickly becoming one of the best AI project management tools around, with a huge suite of generative AI tools and agents designed to boost team performance.
So, is Asana the tool you should be using to empower and enhance your teams? This in-depth review should help you make the right choice.
Quick Verdict: Pros and Cons
We’ve tried dozens of different workplace management apps, from Nifty, to Trello, and Asana is definitely one of our favorite options. It’s easy-to-use, intuitive, and designed specifically for streamlined collaboration. Plus, it’s constantly adding new features and capabilities that make it even more valuable for today’s hybrid teams.
In the past, it was difficult to describe Asana as a “traditional” project management solution simply because it didn’t offer certain features, like budget management or expense tracking. However, that’s starting to change. Unfortunately, this platform can be expensive, and there is a slight learning curve to overcome if you’re new to the platform.
Pros:
- Fantastic range of project views
- Highly customizable and flexible design
- Brilliant goal-setting and reporting tools
- Intuitive workflow automation
- Integrated AI capabilities
- Constantly evolving range of features
- Dozens of integration options
Cons:
- Premium plans can be expensive
- Slight initial learning curve
- Limited integrated collaboration features
Asana Review: Overview and Pricing
As we mentioned above in this Asana review, this platform has evolved significantly in recent years. Asana is absolutely packed with impressive features, from status updates to time tracking capabilities and custom reporting dashboards.
It even has some basic resource management capabilities, like capacity planning and workload tracking. Most recently, Asana upgraded its portfolio with a range of AI features, too, including a fantastic AI studio where business leaders can build autonomous agents capable of completing entire workflows independently.
The Pricing Plans
Although Asana’s premium plans can be a little expensive, the company does offer a capable free plan to beginners. It’s one of the most generous free plans we’ve seen, with support for unlimited tasks, projects, and messages, an activity log, and unlimited file storage.
You can even assign as many due dates as you like, access calendar views, experiment with search filters, and integrate Asana with more than 100 different apps on the free plan.
If you’re looking for more functionality, Asana offers quite a few different plans:
- Starter: $10.99 per user/per month: All the features of the free plan, plus support for up to 500 team mates, timeline and Gantt views, the workflow builder, project dashboards, advanced search, forms, custom templates, private teams and projects, and Asana AI.
- Advanced: $24.99 per user/per month: The features of Starter, plus Goals, 100 portfolios, workload tracking, forms branching, approvals, advanced reporting, time tracking, proofing, scaled security, and additional automation options.
- Enterprise: Custom pricing: All the Advanced plan features plus no user seat limits, unlimited essentials and views, workflow bundles, and resource management. You also get advanced integrations, SAML, and advanced admin features.
- Enterprise+: Custom pricing: All the Enterprise features, plus data loss prevention, audit logs and APIs, archiving integration support, enterprise key management, HIPAA compliance, data residency and more.
While some of these plans are expensive compared to those offered by other project management tools, we do like the fact that Asana AI comes built-in with no extra cost. Most alternatives do ask you to pay extra for your AI assistant.
Asana Review: Key Features
We could probably spend days talking about all the features you get with Asana, and by the time you read this, there could be even more to talk about. One of the things that makes Asana one of the best project management tools is that it's constantly evolving, particularly when it comes to AI features.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at some of the platform's key features and what makes them so valuable to today’s hybrid teams.
Project and Task Management
Asana gives you virtually all of the functionality you’ll need to manage projects effectively. Every user can create unlimited tasks on the platform, and assign them to team members with associated dependencies and due dates. You can even add “custom fields” to tasks, which we love.
These fields make it easy to sort through and filter tasks, so you can get a better insight into what needs to be done to complete a project. On top of that, each individual user gets their own dedicated inbox, where they can receive automated updates about work and assignments. Plus, administrators can create status updates in minutes to keep everyone on the same page.
What we really love about this platform, however, is the wide range of views you can choose from. There’s virtually no limit to the experience you can create. The “Board view” works similarly to a standard Kanban board, giving you tasks in the form of cards that you can drag and drop into different columns based on their status.
There’s a list view that catalogs all of your tasks for a specific day or project. You can even use this view like a spreadsheet, labeling tasks and using columns to count numbers. The timeline view gives you a big-picture view of your entire project schedule, and you can drag and drop tasks into different places as you work.
Plus, you’ll also get a calendar view, with automated deadline notifications, and a Gantt view, where you can see an end-to-end view of your work and instantly identify roadblocks.
Regardless of which view option you choose, Asana gives you a beautifully intuitive and user-friendly dashboard that makes it easy to keep track of everything.
Team and Resource Management Capabilities
Previously, Asana lacked any advanced resource and budget management capabilities, which made it difficult to define the platform as a traditional “project management” app. Lately, though, it has become a lot more robust, giving users access to a range of management features.
First, there’s a built-in time tracking module (although it's only available on some premium plans), which makes it easy for users and supervisors to track how much time is spent on certain projects. Plus, Asana makes it easy to add sub-tasks to core tasks, tag teammates, and log changes throughout a project's life.
One of the “custom fields” available for tasks also gives you access to an automated “cost estimate” based on your business data. Many competing tools don’t offer this as standard despite being incredibly useful for budget tracking.
Asana also allows you to draw dependencies between tasks, which makes it simple to map out the path of a project over time. Plus, certain paid plan users can also access various other resource management tools. For instance, you can use the capacity planning tools to create staffing plans that align your resourcing decisions with your deadlines and goals.
There’s a “workload” overview solution that helps you to track how busy your team members are over a specific time period too. This ensures that business leaders can assign tasks intelligently, without overwhelming or overburdening certain employees.
Asana Review: Workflows and Automation
Automation options are pretty much an essential feature of any great project management tool. Although Asana only offers access to automation capabilities on paid plans, it’s worth noting that the workflow builder is one of the most intuitive we’ve used.
We love how Asana gives companies access to templates they can use with ready-made rules and triggers for specific tasks, so you don’t have to spend forever setting up new workflows. Plus, we like how Asana breaks workflow rules into sections. This means you can build additional functionality into an existing rule, rather than having to connect a new one.
