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Custom fields

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Available on Asana Starter, Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise+ tiers, as well as legacy tiers Premium, Business, and Legacy Enterprise.

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Custom fields let you add additional data to tasks in your Asana projects. You can create a field for stage, priority, cost, or anything else that’s important to your workflow, team, and company. This allows individuals to have clarity on work happening across their organization. You can view the custom fields as columns in a project or within the task itself.

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There are two types of custom fields you can create in Asana:

  • Local custom fields are specific to a single project or portfolio.
  • Global custom fields are added to your organization's field library, meaning they can be reused across your organization.

Join our Getting started with Asana virtual training and learn how to track, categorize, and filter work using custom fields. Register now.

Add a custom field to your project

There are a couple of ways to add a custom field to your project.

The first is to click the + button beside the row of fields in list view.

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Otherwise, you can add custom fields to your project via the Customize menu.

Click the Customize button in the top right, and choose Fields, either under the Edit options, or the Add options.

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Global vs. local custom fields

Global custom fields are fields that are reusable across your organization. Local custom fields are private to the project or portfolio.

Creating a global custom field

To create a global custom field, add a field to your project as shown above.

Adding a new custom field

From the Create new tab you can:

  1. Add a field title
  2. Select the field type
  3. Add a description
  4. Add your field options
  5. Add the field to your organization's field library to make it reusable across your organization. This makes the field a global custom field.

Creating a local custom field

To create a local custom field, add a field to your project as shown above, but do not add the field to your organization's field library, to make it specific to your project. This keeps it a local custom field.

Note iconNote

Only the first level of subtasks will inherit the custom fields of the parent task automatically.

Asana AI recommended fields

You can leverage Asana AI to suggest fields you might like to add to your project.

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  1. Click Customize
  2. Select Fields under the Edit option
  3. Click the + Add button and select Recommend fields

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Asana AI will suggest some fields based on the context of the project and tasks.

Edit fields

You can edit a custom field using your toolbar or column header.

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  1. Click on the Customize button.
  2. Under Edit click Fields to view all fields that have been added to your project.
  3. Click on any field in the list to make edits.
  4. You can also edit a custom field using the column header. Click the drop-down arrow next to the custom field and select Edit field.
Note iconNote

For global custom fields in your organization, edits made to them will apply globally to all the projects you use the field in.

How to delete a field permanently

Delete field.gif

To permanently delete a field:

  1. Click the drop-down arrow next to the field name.
  2. Click Edit field and select Delete field in the bottom left of the Edit field window.
  3. Enter the name of the custom field to confirm deletion and click Delete field.

Edit custom field values

Edit custom field values

When editing a custom field value, you can:

  1. Edit the color of the value
  2. Remove a value from the field
  3. Add a new value to the field
  4. Delete the field entirely

Rearrange custom field values

Drag and drop the custom field values to rearrange them.

Note iconNote

If you remove a custom field value from your field's value options, tasks that use that value will retain the deleted value. The field can then be changed to another value, but you are not able to change a field back to a deleted item.

Edit number fields

When editing a number field, you can:

  • Modify the field by currency, number, percentage, custom label or unformatted.
  • Modify the number of decimal places being displayed
  • Delete the field entirely
Note iconNote

Reducing your field's decimal places will retain all current values, but they will be rounded up/down. Increase your field's decimal places and the original value will appear again.

Remove custom fields from a project

Remove your field from a project if it is no longer needed or applicable.

Remove custom field from project

Select the Remove field from project option by clicking on the drop-down arrow next to the custom field name in the column header. You can also remove a field from your project through the Edit field window. When editing a field you will see the Remove from project button at the bottom of the Edit field window.

Note iconNote

Removing a global custom field only removes it from the current project, it does not delete the field entirely. Other projects in your organization with the same field will retain it and the field could still be added to other projects in your organization.

Retained values

Removing a field from your project does not delete your field's values from your project's tasks.

If your field is populated, the custom field and its value will still appear in the right pane of your task's details.

If your field is empty, the custom field will also disappear from the right pane of your task's details.

Custom field notifications

You can turn on custom field notifications at any time for both new and existing drop-down fields.

Custom field notifications

Check the Notifications box when creating a new drop-down field to notify task collaborators when this field's value has been changed.

Turn on notifications for existing field

To turn on notifications for an existing field:

  1. Click the Customize menu
  2. Click Fields
  3. Select your desired field
  4. Check the Notifications box
Note iconNote

Custom field notifications are only available for drop-down fields.

Once you are a task collaborator, you will receive an inbox notification every time a field value is changed.

Who will receive custom field notifications?

If a custom field is public to your organization or team and someone checks the notifications box, anyone using that field at the time will receive notifications every time that field's value has been changed. If you want to be notified when a field's value has been changed for a specific task, you need to be a task collaborator.

Project members will only receive custom field notifications if they are following the task where the field value has been changed.

Note iconNote

See how others use custom fields in the forum.

Want to learn more? Check out all the features of Asana Custom Fields.

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Custom fields