New features from Polish Week

Asana just wrapped up another Polish Week. This is a week we dedicate during each episode solely to improving features and fixing bugs. Polish Week enables us to unlock a lot of value, get to small details that otherwise wouldn’t get done, and build camaraderie at the same time. It’s a part of our product process we get really excited about.

This time, our team made 90+ improvements during Polish Week – here are the ones we think you’ll enjoy the most:

Duplicate tasks. To help your team fill out tasks with the right structure, you can create template tasks and duplicate them. Just click the dropdown button in the upper right corner of the task pane and select “Duplicate Task”.

Drag and drop to change a task to a subtask, even if it’s the first subtask. Drag a task from the center pane to the task details pane to make it a subtask. As minor as this is, this may be our team’s favorite Polish Week improvement!

Improved accessibility features in our mobile apps. Our apps are now accessible with VoiceOver on iPhone and Talkback on Android.

Create a new task while commenting. Ever think of a new task in the middle of a comment? Now you can instantly turn that thought into a task. Just type “@” and the task name, and an option will appear to create a new task. Example: “I think the first step is to @schedule a brainstorming session.”

Ability to ♥ a comment via email notification. Heart ♥’s? We do too. Click the <3 link at the bottom of an Asana email or simply reply with “<3” to the comment thread. This will add a ♥ to the most recent comment.

Improved view for expanded comment threads. Previously, when you expanded a comment thread by clicking “7 more comments”, the comment thread scrolled to the top. Now, the comment you are reading stays in the same place on the screen, so you can scroll up at your own pace.

Today/Upcoming/Later in Search. Find out what everyone in your company is working on. In Advanced Search under Search by Another Field choose Today/Upcoming/Later.

Visual improvements to suggested searches. Beautiful design is important to us. So, we improved the look of suggested searches, which makes it easier for you find what you are looking for.

Search for Tags on mobile. Search on Android, iPhone, and our mobile site.

Hover to see which team owns a project. Quickly determine which team created a project. In the task details pane, hover over the project name for a tooltip with the team’s name.

Auto-follow projects shared with you. When someone adds you to a project via the “Share” button in the upper right corner of the center pane, you automatically become a project follower. You will be notified via Inbox or email notification whenever a task is added to that project.

No auto-follow for tags you create. Now you won’t be notified every time a Tag you created is added to a task. To enable notifications, click on the Tag and add yourself as a Tag follower in the upper right corner of the center pane.

Redesigned Blog. Our blog has a new look! We will describe the design changes in an upcoming post.

… And many more! The list above is just a sample of the many improvements we made during Polish Week. Comment below about improvements you like or with any special requests for our next Polish Week!

Note: We updated this post and turned off center pane notifications for attachments and draft comments, which were part of our initial Polish Week launch, on 6/18/2013. We decided to prioritize faster app load times over these features. See comments for more information.