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Giving feedback and approvals

In This Article

Refining your feedback and approvals process is a great way to help your team move faster and let them know if they’re on the right track or not. In this article, you'll learn how to make this process more effective and structured in Asana.

Approval tasks

Approvals are a type of task that provide approvers with three clear options; "Approve," "Request changes," or "Reject." Approvers can easily see what is required, while the requester gets immediate feedback.

Create an approval task

How to mark a task as approval

To create an approval:

  1. Click the three dot icon in the task details pane
  2. Click Mark as approval
  3. Use the task description to provide instructions or information for the approver
  4. Attach any file that needs to be approved
  5. Assign the task to the approver with a due date

Complete an approval task

As an approver, there will be three options you can choose from: "Approve," "Request changes," or "Reject." Make sure to use comments to provide additional context and explain why you approved, rejected, or asked for changes.

If the approval task had an image or attached PDF, you can leave feedback on them with  proofing comments. Your feedback stays in context and an actionable subtask is created to ensure it gets incorporated by the creator.

Prevent bottlenecks

Approvals can unlock or block projects. Whether you’re a project manager, contributor, or approver, here are ways you can prevent bottlenecks:

  1. Create task dependencies so work happens in the right order. If you need to finish the design before it gets approved, dependencies help get the approver’s attention at the right time.
  2. For anyone managing several approvals, create an advanced search report for approvals assigned to me to make sure you’re staying on top of them.
  3. If something isn’t approved or needs changes, reassign the task to the person responsible for making a change.
  4. Use custom fields to track progress. Custom fields can help in tracking the progress and details of each task. For example, you can incorporate fields such as "Approval status" to visualize which tasks are waiting approval.
  5. Set up rules in Asana to automate parts of the workflow. For example, when a task is moved to "Awaiting Approval," automatically assign it to the approver and set a due date.

Leave feedback with proofing

Proofing 1

For projects involving design and visual assets, you can use proofing which allows you to leave specific comments directly on images and PDFs. With proofing, feedback is anchored to exact points in the image, ensuring that instructions are precise and easy to follow.

To add feedback to an image or PDF:

  1. Click the image attached in the task
  2. Click Add Feedback on the top-right
  3. Click the area on the image where you wish to leave feedback
  4. A subtask with the feedback will be created
  5. You can add more details to the subtask
Note iconNote

You can use proofing for PDF, PNG, JPG, GIF, and BMP files.

Examples of how you can provide feedback

Here are just some of the many ways your team can start giving feedback and approvals in Asana with our proofing, approval task and custom fields features:

TeamExample
AllUse forms to submit requests or project proposals, and turn that task into an approval task before work gets started.
GeneralAdd a task progress custom field to any project to see where each task stands and sort your project by that custom field
DesignLeave feedback on images with proofing comments.
MarketingAssign approval tasks to the director of marketing to finalize campaigns and assets.
OperationsApprove vendor budgets or proposals with approval tasks.

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Giving feedback and approvals