Project reporting template

“What’s the status of this project?”

If you’re a project manager, you’ve probably heard this question before. To answer it, you likely had to dig through reporting dashboards, scan your inbox, and check with your team. But imagine if there was a simpler way—a single source of truth where you could quickly see what’s been completed, what’s next, and how far you have to go to reach your project goals. 

Enter: The project reporting template. 

What is a project reporting template? 

A project reporting template is a reusable guide that lets you quickly create a project report—like a weekly status report or monthly progress report. It’s a framework you can use at the start of every new project, so you always know what type of information you should be tracking. All you have to do is copy the template, fill in the required information, and start working. 

Project reporting is important for more than just updating stakeholders. It’s also how you keep work on track, address blockers, and ensure that work is completed on time. Your project reporting template provides an at-a-glance view of what needs to be done next and how you’re progressing toward your project goals. 

The benefits of a digital project reporting template

No project is set in stone. Priorities and timelines often evolve over time—and as your team completes deliverables, you get closer and closer to accomplishing your project goal. A digital project reporting template can capture change over time in a way that static templates can’t. It updates in real time, so you always know what’s been completed and what’s next. And if priorities change, you can easily update your template to keep stakeholders in the loop.

With a digital project reporting template, you can: 

• Track task completion in real time.

• Give stakeholders a single source of truth for your project’s status. 

• See at-a-glance how you’re progressing toward project goals. 

• Easily update your template if timelines or priorities change. 

• Track goals, key performance indicators (KPIs), project deliverables, and project status in one place. 

• Visualize your reporting template with customizable dashboards—without doing any extra work. 

• Assign tasks and set deadlines, so it’s clear who’s doing what by when. 

• Attach relevant Google Docs, spreadsheets, images, and more. 

How to structure your digital project reporting template 

At its most basic, your project reporting template should include the following information: 

• Current progress toward each of your project goals.

• Tasks you’re currently prioritizing. 

• Any issues or blockers that could impact progress. 

• Completed tasks or project milestones. 

To format your template, create a section for each of these buckets: 

Progress toward goals

In this section, you need space to document your project objectives, the KPIs you’ll use to measure them, and your current progress toward those goals. 

To track this information, create the following columns: 

• Goal: An overarching objective you want to achieve. For example, “increase home page traffic.”

• KPI: A metric to track progress against your goal. For example, you could measure home page traffic by tracking site visitors. 

• Current performance: The current measurement of your chosen KPI. For example, “1.2M site visitors.”

• Desired performance: The desired measurement of your chosen KPI, required to achieve your project goal. For example, “2M site visitors.”

• Due date: The projected timeline for each goal. 

• Assignee: The person responsible for monitoring and achieving each objective. 

Tasks you’re currently prioritizing 

Seeing tasks that are “on deck” can help you proactively remove blockers that may impact upcoming work. Plus, having an overview of the tasks you’re prioritizing helps paint a picture of how your project is progressing over time. This section can look different depending on the specific needs of your project. For example, if you’re creating a weekly status report template, this section could include tasks on your team’s to-do list for this week. 

Completed tasks or milestones

This section helps you see what you’ve accomplished so far. It illustrates the concrete progress you’ve made toward achieving each deliverable, plus helps you queue up tasks that are next in line. You can also tailor this section to your project’s specific needs—for example, tasks that were completed last week, or a list of all completed milestones for your entire project. 

Issues or blockers

Finally, create a section to document any blockers or bottlenecks that could impact upcoming work. This helps you proactively resolve issues before they become a larger problem. Or, it can help stakeholders understand why certain deliverables are taking longer than expected.  

Features and apps to try

Try out these features and app integrations to get the most out of your project reporting template:

Integrated features

• Reporting. Reporting in Asana translates project data into visual charts and digestible graphs. By reporting on work where work lives, you can reduce duplicative work and cut down on unnecessary app switching. And, because all of your team’s work is already in Asana, you can pull data from any project or team to get an accurate picture of what’s happening in one place.

• Custom fields. Custom fields are the best way to tag, sort, and filter work. Create unique custom fields for any information you need to track—from priority and status to email or phone number. Use custom fields to sort and schedule your to-dos so you know what to work on first. Plus, share custom fields across tasks and projects to ensure consistency across your organization. 

• Milestones. Milestones represent important project checkpoints. By setting milestones throughout your project, you can let your team members and project stakeholders know how you’re pacing towards your goal. Use milestones as a chance to celebrate the little wins on the path towards the big project goal. 

• Start dates. Sometimes you don’t just need to track when a to-do is due—you also need to know when you should start working on it. Start times and dates give your team members a clear sense of how long each task should take to complete. Use start dates to set, track, and manage work to align your team's objectives and prevent dependencies from falling through the cracks. 

Recommended apps

• Google Workplace. Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Google Workplace file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach any My Drive file with just a few clicks.

• Dropbox. Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Dropbox file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane.

• OneDrive. Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Microsoft OneDrive file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach files from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more.

• Jira. Create interactive, connected workflows between technical and business teams to increase visibility around the product development process in real time—all without leaving Asana. Streamline project collaboration and hand offs. Quickly create Jira issues from within Asana so that work passes seamlessly between business and technical teams at the right time. 

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