Asana + Jira: Comparison, Connection and Advantages

The landscape ofproject management toolson the market is incredibly large. From simple to-do lists to fully integrated project management suites, there is something for everyone. Two of the most important and widely used applications are Asana, Jiraandawork. They differ fundamentally and can serve very different purposes.

In this article, guest author Christian Kroeber will share the most important differences between the two tools and for what purpose each project management software can be used. Asana and Jira each follow very different approaches to successfully implement projects. In this article, Jira will always be the cloud version.

What are Asana and Jira used for?

While both tools serve the purpose of managing projects and optimizing workflow project management - the tools are very differently structured and pursue very different goals. Asana is one of the very flexible and popular project management tools, as it is very intuitively structured and thus well suited for non-technical teams, such as marketing, content creation, sales etc.

In contrast, Jira is significantly stricter and gives the user much tougher possibilities to set guidelines within which one can work within the project. The precise definition of workflows, fields and views is much more deeply rooted in Jira. All processes that follow a narrower corset are therefore well suited to Jira. Particularly technical teams, such as software development, data or design can map and manage complex workflows in Jira. Accordingly, Jira can be deeply integrated into the working processes of software development and connected with repositories and deployment pipelines.

Both tools can certainly represent almost all use cases for project management and prioritize tasks. But one should look closely to understand which tool really fits best with the application and user group.

The differences between Asana and Jira

The general structure of Asana

Asana is organized in so-called teams. Within a team, you can set up projects, which in turn can contain individual tasks or subtasks. The hierarchy looks like this:

1. Team
2. Project
3. Milestone
4. Task
5. Subtask

Again and again, Asana also introduces additional features like portfolio, status updates or goals for OKRs. However, these often cannot be used in the free version. Some features are only available in the enterprise solution.

Exciting about Asana compared to Jira is that the tool feels and can be used very versatile and flexible. Various use cases can be implemented with a few simple steps, as projects can be displayed in list view, but also as calendars, board view or timeline. Therefore, you can plan traditional projects, but also build content creation calendars or create meeting notes. As a user, you can also switch between the views very flexibly. This brings some advantages and can cover different requirements within a team.

Source: Asana

In addition to the mentioned views, other features have been added in the meantime. For example, project briefings can be created. There, in addition to text, files can also be provided, which are then directly accessible for project participants. In addition, the milestones you want to reach, as well as many other pieces of information, are visible. As you can see, there are many little features that can make a project better. Asana's goal in all of this is to bundle all the information in one place. Whether this is really useful, however, ultimately depends on the project. Also, message postings within a project have been added in recent times. Overall, you get the feeling that Asana is developing the projects significantly further and new features are being added continuously

Source: Asana

Workflows and integrations

A lot has happened in Asana in recent years. Meanwhile, many major tools can be connected and the integration are constantly being developed further. Within the projects, you can insert apps, as Asana calls the integrations. The integrations are then also available at task level, if possible. For example, you can add Google Docs or store Miro Boards.

Source: Asana

In addition to the integrations, you can also set many rules that are really helpful, especially for collaborative projects.

Examples that we use frequently:

1. When task is checked off, move it to the Done column
2. When task is scheduled, add persons A, B and C to the task so they are included in everything
3. When the due date of the task has been reached, it automatically checks off (can be particularly useful for calendars)

Many of the powerful automations and rules, however, are only available in the more expensive enterprise plans and can thus limit smaller projects.

The general structure of Jira

The heart of Jira are the projects. You can build these in a very granular way. It quickly becomes clear that Jira originally came from the project management of software projects. The ticket hierarchy that can arise within a project looks like this:

1. Epics
2. Stories
3. Tasks
4. Sub-Tasks

Through custom fields, everything can also be enriched with further information and customized. There are no limits to the imagination.

In principle, each of the four mentioned ticket types always has a status. Jira has great colors for this. “To Do” statuses are always gray, “In Processing” blue and “Done” is green.

In addition, tickets in Jira are automatically provided with a number. This can be very practical to quickly find tasks again. Asana, on the other hand, does not offer this feature. It also cannot be added via plugins or the like

Projects in Jira

The most commonly used project type is definitely Scrum for software development teams. In addition, however, there are now countless templates that you can use for free. On the screenshot, you can see the huge number of categories within which Jira offers templates.

Source: Jira

But there is also always the option to start with a blank project from zero and build the workflow yourself.

The workflows in Jira

When you set up a project, one of the first things is to define the workflow. This is especially essential for agile teams that have a lot of stakeholders. When does the development process start? When does a ticket go to QA? When can the PO look at it? And when is the ticket actually in “Deployment”?

Source: Jira

The workflows can be very complex and handling them doesn't really feel modern. You can also see here that Jira, as a software, has been on the market significantly longer than Asana. Primarily for Jira beginners it can take time until you are perfectly positioned here, as not everything is intuitive to use. Changes to the processes, for example a task should be moved after the status IN WORK not to the TESTING column, but to REVIEW, can take time to implement if you are inexperienced. This shows how rigid Jira can be. But the processes can also be defined down to the last detail.

Integrations Jira vs. Asana

Both tools have many integration options. Asana offers many direct integrations that connect many common tools like Slack, Google Drive or Figma. The connection is very simple and can even only be set up for individual projects.

Jira also has countless integrations that make life easier. They are called “Apps” there and also cover the usual 3rd-party tools. In addition, there is the marketplace, where there are many more tools by verified third-party providers. There are small helpers on offer there that were developed only for Jira. It is even possible to write your own apps for Jira to cover completely new use cases. Since the Jira provider Atlassian also offers the repository tool Bitbucket or Confluence for documentations, these tools integrate without having to explicitly turn it on.

Source: Jira

Please note that there are also paid apps available on the Jira Marketplace. Therefore, it makes sense to look really closely if the use case is actually met.

Jira Asana Sync - The Direct Integration

Since Asana and Jira are used in many larger companies, there is also a direct integration between the two. A Jira ticket can be linked to an Asana task. So a task from marketing, such as inserting an image on the landing page, can be linked directly to the corresponding task for the technical team. In Asana, you can then track the status and the silo between the two tools is broken.

Source: Asana

At the moment, there is no integration that makes Asana tasks visible in Jira in the way shown above. However, there is a Jira marketplace app that can add Asana tasks as attachments.

Conclusion

Asana and Jira are both leading project management tools and are used by thousands of companies worldwide. Therefore, both are absolute top solutions. Take a close look at what goals you want to reach. If workflows are less rigid, then Asana is an excellent solution. If procedural guidelines have to be adhered to and a deep integration into technical infrastructure is important, then Jira is slightly ahead.

The best project management tools on OMR Reviews are:

Asana

monday.com

Notion

Jira

Trello

Stackfield

MeisterTask