Giving feedback and approvals

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. Follow along for examples of where to add approvals into your work and tips on how to do it.

Examples of how you can use the feedback or approval process

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:

TeamExampleAllUse forms to submit requests or project proposals, and turn that task into an approval task before work gets startedGeneralAdd a task progress custom field to any project to see where each task stands and sort your project by that custom fieldDesignLeave 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

Tips for creating a great approval task

Make sure your work gets approved on time by creating great approval tasks. Here’s how:

Make sure you create an approval task (versus a regular task). Look for the stamp icon.
Attach any file that needs to be approved so the approver can jump right in.
Assign the task to the approver with a due date.

Tips for being an effective approver

No one wants to be the blocker. Try out these tips for fast, smooth approvals and feedback:

Leave feedback on images and PDFs with proofing comments. Your feedback stays in context and an actionable subtask is created to ensure it gets incorporated by the creator.
Use task comments to explain why you said yes, no, or changes needed.
If something isn’t approved or needs changes, reassign the task to the person responsible for making a change. (Premium customers can set up a rule to do this for them!)

Preventing bottlenecks

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

Create task dependencies so work happens in the right order without all the extra pinging. If you need to finish the design before it gets approved, dependencies help get the approver’s attention at the right time.
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.