Item: Asana
Rating: 8
Author: Anish Walinjkar

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Asana is used in our Product Engineering Services (PES) part of our business. In this, we develop software products for our customers or sometimes for internal needs. Most of the teams in PES use Asana for task assigning, monitoring, and tracking purposes. It's one of the best tools to manage and collaborate on project tasks in parallel to any other project management tool like Primavera, SAP-Projects Systems, or Microsoft Project.

Pros and Cons

It is easy to use and record a project's tasks.
The manager or any responsible team member can assign/reassign a task to other team members. It also sends email to all the participants and team members who are responsible for delivery of the task
The free version of Asana also comes with lots of features - like task assignment, monitoring, and tracking, email alerts, status tracking based on due dates etc.

It is good for managing tasks but has limitations if you need to track bugs/issues. For a bug tracking system one would also need some other information fields like Bug ID, Customer, Severity / Priority etc.
Adding custom fields - Not sure whether Asana allows it.
It allows you to attach documents. But it should allow you to put a screenshot in line with the text so that the person reading the description of the task/issue doesn't have to refer to an attachment for small screenshots.

Return on Investment

It allows us to keep control of the schedule of the critical tasks assigned to an individual, thereby reducing the risk of delays in the overall deliverables.
Also helps with document tracking purposes and to a certain extent managing documents in one place. But, it does not create automatic versioning so it's not as great as Microsoft SharePoint or One Drive.
If you use the free Asana version then there is very little or no investment, and you leverage one of the best applications for project task tracking.

Alternatives Considered

Bugzilla and FogBugz

Bugzilla also has a free version but is slightly difficult to customize. Would need someone from your team to administer it at regular intervals.

Support Rating

I don't remember if we've had to get into a customer support call. Most of the functionalities are easy to use or explained on their website.

Key Insights

Do you think Asana delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Asana's feature set?

Yes

Did Asana live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Asana go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Asana again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Oracle Primavera Portfolio Management

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are a manager or a team lead, Asana is one of the finest applications for managing, tracking task that keeps you in control of your deliverables. It also keeps track and records historical data and tasks. You can also refer to old similar issue if you have across in the past. It also allows you to merge, duplicate or delete a particular task. For quick review, Asana also has a mobile app that can be downloaded.

Asana - Best of the breed for project task management

Overall Satisfaction with Asana