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Tracking Time in Asana: A Fast and Intuitive Method

07 July 2023

Effective time tracking lies at the heart of successful project management for teams. Asana, the popular project management tool, promises to streamline collaboration and boost productivity. However, when tracking time with Asana native feature, your team might lament its limitations that bring frustrations and hinder progress.

Tired of time tracking in Asana? Uplift your time tracking with Timeular

The most accurate and effortless time tracking solution for teams!

Indeed, Asana’s time tracking is relatively cumbersome and has limited features. As a team, the consequences of such limitations could be pretty severe, for example:

Inaccuracy in tracking billing hours
Hence you constantly operate at low margins and tight budgets
Invoices are imprecise, unreliable, and clients might lose trust in your services.
There’s too much time lost in building time sheets
Planning and meeting deadlines are based on approximate data, and you risk overpromising to stakeholders.

In today’s article, you’ll discover a simple and effective way to overcome Asana’s time tracking limitation by offering your team a better alternative and the best Asana time tracking integration.

After a quick step-by-step guide on implementing time tracking in Asana and the concrete hurdles of that feature, you will learn about Timeular: the most effortless and user-friendly team tracking tool. Also, you’ll learn how to integrate Timeular into Asana and how to stay on top of time spent on your team’s tasks.

Timeular is an intuitive and easy way to track a large variety of projects!
Heather M., Senior Graphic Designer

Does Asana have time tracking?

Yes, Asana has a built-in time-tracking feature. It allows you to estimate tasks’ duration and report time spent on tasks either manually or with the timer.

In Asana, you can generate reports about your team’s productivity. The insights are nevertheless limited, as you’ll learn further in the article.

How to set up an Asana time tracker?

The best way to set up an Asana time tracker is to integrate Asana with Timeular. Keep in mind that the native feature of Asana is very limited.

To find the time tracking feature in Asana, open your project, find the “Customize” button, and then click “Time your work.” At this point, every project task will have two dedicated custom fields: Estimated time and actual time.

Learn more about how to estimate time for your projects.

The cons of tracking time in Asana

Asana time tracking is available just for Business and Enterprise customers. If you have a Free, Basic, or Premium subscription, you must find alternatives to log your time.
Time tracking in Asana is too expensive for smaller teams: $30.49 per user/mo. Using the Free or Premium tier and Timeular as Asana time tracking integration is much more convenient.
You must enable time tracking for each project manually.
There’s no distinction between billable and non-billable hours, leading to inaccurate invoices and lessening clients’ trust.
There aren’t project budgets, and your team is at risk of overworking for clients.
Time estimates are done at a task level, not a member level, impeding single users from doing personal estimates.
Reports are limited: they do not provide advanced filtering or sorting options. If you want to view time tracking data based on specific criteria such as team members, tags, or custom fields, you may not have the flexibility to do so.
There is no timesheet feature. Hence you have to chase your team for detailed time logs.
Absence of custom reminders that might help your team to start-stop tracking or take a break.
No keyboard shortcuts are enabled to start and stop the timer or switch tasks easily. Your team will lose time opening Asana every time to track time.

Timeular: The best way to track time in Asana

Timeular is the most effortless time tracking solution for teams, offering a wide range of features tailored to managing projects successfully:

Clear budget views help teams to track time spent on specific projects and clients.
Track billable vs. non-billable time.
Track any leave type and overwork.
Automatic time tracking to automatically track opened apps, making it easier to fill the gaps when the team forgets to track time.
Physical Tracker: Timeular Tracker works offline and can track up to 1000 activities.
Calendar integration to connect Google, Apple, Outlook, and any other CalDAV calendar.
Versatile report functionalities with multiple filters and views that bring actionable insights into productivity.

Build a time tracking habit with the Timeular Tracker

To strengthen their time tracking habit, teams can decide to pair Timeular software with its widely known physical Tracker. The 8-sided dice is a visual reminder that sits on each member’s desk, and they can start tracking time just by flipping it. The Tracker can track up to 1,000 activities with just 8 sides. Simply leave one or more sides of your Tracker empty. Every empty side will act like a joker side. It will open Quicktrack and let you choose what you want to track. You don’t need the Tracker to use Timeular software.

The Tracker works intuitively: assign the activities to each side of the tracker and flip it to start new time entries.

I am not one that finds joy in tracking my time. Thankfully, I can now simply flip the Timeular Tracker.
Melissa, Senior Analyst in Health

Track your time with a physical Tracker

Build a habit using muscle memory and a powerful physical reminder. All new users get 2 months free subscription when connecting a new Tracker.

Timeular delivers actionable reports and automates timesheets

Time reports in Timeular are generated automatically for every member of your team. As a space supervisor, you’ll have a complete overview of every team’s member report.

You can combine multiple filters to generate custom views. Also, you can export your reports to PDF, XLSX, or CSV.

You’ll never chase a timesheet again!

I love being able to see where my time goes and be able to make accurate reports to my supervisor on how long things actually take. That’s helped me defend the value of my time and organize my work week personally so I’m not overpromising and under-delivering.

Liam S. Innovation Designer

Create beautiful and accurate reports of your team’s time

Timeular makes reporting much easier! Bill clients accurately and export your data in CSV, PDF, and XLSX!

Why Timeular is the best alternative to track time in Asana

Easy to use – Having to open Asana to track time when switching from one task makes the workflow so clunky. Also, it is a waste of time! With Timeular, your team can track time with Quicktrack (keyboard shortcuts) by flipping the Tracker or manually adding time entries to the calendar view at the end of the day.
Allows teams and individuals to track overwork and any leave type. This is possible both for full- and part-time workers, and includes over- and minus-hours. It’s an easy method for adding and monitoring all leave requests from the whole team!
Automated time tracking – If you forget to start the timer, or switch activities, no problem. Timeular will record which apps, websites, and tools you use. Your data is 100% protected and is stored in your computer; no one will have access to it.
Detail reports – Asana time reports are limited to two dimensions at a time. For example, you can’t see at a glance how much time each team member worked on a given project. In Timeular, you can. Also, Timeular Insights offers multiple filters and exporting formats such as CSV, PDF, and XLSX.
Improves Billing – With Asana, your team can’t track billable and non-billable time; in Timeular, they can. Distinguishing between billable vs. non-billable activities will improve your invoice accuracy, maximize profits and reinforce clients’ trust.
Keeps time budgets in check – In Asana, your team can’t track how many hours are left for a project or a client. In Timeular, the budget feature is dedicated precisely to this.
Custom reminders – If your team forgets to track time one day, they might give inaccurate estimates by guessing how much time they need for a task. In Timeular, every team member can receive custom reminders to start and stop tracking.
Keep workflow intact – To track time in Asana, you must open the app, start the timer and switch to the task. That’s a waste of time and breaks the workflow! Instead, in Timeular, you can switch tasks with keyboard shortcuts without opening the app.

How to track time in Asana with Timeular?

You can easily connect Timeular with Asana via Zapier. You don’t need to pay for a Zapier subscription; it’s free for up to 100 integrations.

Here are the steps you need to follow:

Sign-up for Timeular and start your free 30-day trial
Sign up for Zapier
Ensure you have your Asana credentials at hand
Create a new Zap where the Trigger is “New Task in Project in Asana” and the Action is Create Activity in Timeular
To connect Timeular with Zapier, you need an API key and a secret API; find them in Timeular > Settings > My account > API > Create a new API key
Set the ZAP live, and you’re all set to track your Asana task in Timeular.

Timeular is a great way to keep track of time! I have reduced the time needed to report my project time which has allowed me to spend more time working on project tasks vs. administration.
Ivan S. Implementation Consultant/ Project Manager

Accurately track time of your projects. Try Timeular for free!

An intuitive and easy way to track a large variety of projects with your team.

Conclusions about time tracking with Asana

In conclusion, effective time tracking is crucial for successful project management, but Asana’s native time tracking feature has limitations that can hinder productivity and accuracy. The consequences of these limitations include inaccurate billing, tight budgets, unreliable invoices, and overpromising to stakeholders.

However, Timeular offers a simple and effective solution to overcome these hurdles and integrate seamlessly with Asana.

Timeular provides an intuitive and user-friendly solution for team time tracking. It offers clear budget views, billable vs. non-billable time tracking, app context tracking, and calendar integration. With versatile report functionalities and actionable insights, Timeular empowers teams to manage projects more effectively.

Compared to Asana’s time tracking, Timeular stands out in ease of use, detailed reports, improved billing accuracy, time budget tracking, and the physical Tracker. By integrating Timeular with Asana through Zapier, users can enjoy a seamless experience and track time effortlessly.
Make the switch to Timeular and improve your team’s time tracking experience.

FAQ

How do I add estimated hours to Asana?

Open a task in Asana, click the Customize button in the top right corner, and select time tracking from the list. You’ll see estimated time and actual time fields. Just fill in the time you’ve estimated for the task.

How do I add time and watch progress in Asana?

You can add time in Asana by filling in the custom fields for time tracking in each project’s task. Still, you can’t watch progress in Asana. Instead, integrate Timeular with Asana and use the Budget feature to track the progress of your projects. Asana doesn’t offer a timesheet feature. But by integrating Timuelar with Asana, you can generate automated timesheets for the whole team.

How do I track the project budget in Asana?

Unfortunately, Asana doesn’t offer a project budget feature. You have to integrate Timeular with Asana, and then you’ll be able to track the progress of your project budget.