Attachment Manager for Asana Is Now Free

Managing attachments in Asana projects can quickly become fragmented. Files are uploaded to parent tasks, buried in subtasks, or hidden inside comment threads. Over time, teams lose visibility, waste time searching, and risk using the wrong version of a document.

To solve this, we developed Attachment Manager for Asana completely in-house at BDQ - and it is now entirely free. There are no paid tiers, no feature gates, and no hidden upgrades. Every feature is available to everyone.

Attachment Manager was built to save time, reduce friction, and improve attachment visibility across Asana projects. It’s also a practical example of something we do regularly for customers: develop bespoke applications to extend work management platforms where native functionality falls short.

In this article, we’ll explore what the tool does, what’s new, and why structured attachment management is critical for scalable work management.

TL;DR ↓

Why Attachment Management in Asana Becomes a Bottleneck

Asana is a powerful work management solution used for:

• Project management
• Marketing campaign coordination
• HR and recruitment workflows
• IT and operations tracking
• Cross-functional collaboration

However, attachment handling is often an afterthought in system design. Over time, this creates friction:

• Files scattered across subtasks
• Duplicate uploads
• Lost approvals
• Time spent hunting for documents
• Reduced reporting clarity

When work management platforms are central to business operations, even small inefficiencies compound quickly.

This is exactly the kind of gap that often leads us at BDQ to develop enhancements - whether through configuration, automation, or fully bespoke applications.

Developed In-House by BDQ

Attachment Manager for Asana was designed and built entirely by BDQ.

We have long used Atlassian and work management platforms internally and with customers, developing our own marketplace apps and integrations over the years . That hands-on experience gives us practical insight into where platforms excel - and where small extensions can deliver significant value.

Attachment Manager is a direct result of that philosophy: identify a workflow friction point and build a clean, efficient solution.

Importantly, this capability is not limited to this product.

If a customer needs functionality that their work management system doesn’t natively provide - we build it.

That may include:

• Custom integrations
• Data transformation tools
• Reporting enhancements
• Automation frameworks
• Bespoke workflow applications
• Marketplace-ready add-ons

Attachment Manager is just one example.

What’s New in Attachment Manager for Asana

The latest update improves usability and performance across several areas.

1. Subtask Attachments in One Unified View

With a single toggle, users can now include subtask attachments alongside parent task files.

This eliminates a common problem: critical documents hidden within nested subtasks.

The result is improved:

• Visibility
• Audit confidence
• Approval workflows
• File traceability

2. Searchable Project and Task Navigation

Searchable dropdowns allow users to jump between projects and tasks without leaving the page.

This reduces:

• Context switching
• Manual navigation
• Time spent browsing

And improves overall productivity within Asana environments.

3. Image Previews and Recognisable File Icons

Attachments now display:

• Image thumbnails
• Clear icons for PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, and more

This makes it significantly faster to identify files at a glance - especially in content-heavy projects.

4. Refreshed UI Aligned with Asana

The interface has been redesigned to feel closer to Asana’s native experience.

When extensions feel native:

• Adoption improves
• Training requirements drop
• Users feel more confident

5. Preferences Remembered Between Sessions

Settings persist across sessions, reducing repetitive configuration and improving workflow continuity.

The Measurable Productivity Impact

Even small workflow inefficiencies add up. Let’s look at a simple example scenario:

🕠 5 minutes per day spent searching for attachments
👥 for a 20-person team
🗓️ over 230 working days per year

That equals:

5 × 20 × 230 = 23,000 minutes annually
= 383+ hours per year
= Nearly 10 full working weeks

If better attachment visibility reduces that by just 50%, that’s over 190 hours saved annually for one team. Multiply that across departments or regions, and the savings become significant. This is why we focus heavily on visibility, reporting clarity, and workflow optimisation in our Asana consulting engagements.

For example, in our Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) implementation, improving structure and reporting visibility transformed how strategic goals were tracked . Similarly, Universal Robots estimated a 130% improvement in workload and efficiency compared to spreadsheets and emails .

Visibility and structure consistently drive measurable gains.

Beyond Attachments: When Native Tools Aren’t Enough

Most work management platforms are highly configurable - but no platform covers every unique business scenario.

That’s where bespoke development comes in.

At BDQ, we:

• Configure platforms for best-practice use
• Integrate systems via APIs
• Build automation frameworks
• Develop custom apps when required

If you need:

• Advanced reporting not available out-of-the-box
• Custom file management logic
• Data migration tooling
• Cross-platform integrations
• Industry-specific workflows

We can design and build it.

Attachment Manager for Asana is proof of concept: when a workflow gap exists, we engineer a solution.

Who Benefits Most from Attachment Manager?

Attachment Manager is especially useful for:

📢 Marketing Teams

Campaign assets, creative files, and regional adaptations often sit in subtasks.

💼 HR and Recruitment Teams

CVs, onboarding documents, compliance files, and contracts require structured visibility.

💻 IT and Operations Teams

Screenshots, logs, change documentation, and technical evidence often sit across nested tasks.

🤝 Professional Services Firms

Client deliverables and version-controlled documents require fast retrieval and audit clarity.

Any team using Asana as a central collaboration hub can benefit.

Final Thoughts

Attachment Manager for Asana, developed entirely in-house by BDQ, is now completely free. It simplifies attachment visibility, reduces time wasted searching for files, and enhances collaboration across Asana projects.

More broadly, it demonstrates something fundamental about how we work: when a work management platform doesn’t provide the functionality our customers need, we build it.

If your Asana, Atlassian, or other work management environment feels constrained by native limitations - or if you’re looking to improve visibility, reporting, automation, or integration - we’d love to talk. Get in touch to explore how bespoke development or optimisation could unlock more value from your tools.