An Asana administrator may be the person who keeps an agency, operations team, or small business moving. Their account can connect client deadlines, staff assignments, invoices, and years of decisions. When that person dies, colleagues may still see their daily tasks while nobody knows who can manage membership or the next subscription renewal. Families may also need help distinguishing company records from personal information.
Start with one coordinator and a written inventory. Establish who can make decisions, preserve necessary records, and check each part of the handover separately. This guide offers an operational checklist for teams across countries. It does not establish inheritance rights or guarantee that Asana will approve a particular recovery request.
1. Identify the space and the people responsible
Record the organization or workspace name, its URL, the deceased person's work email, the paid plan if any, and known administrators. Identify whether the subscription covers the whole organization, a division, a team, or a workspace. Include invoice references and a contact address controlled by the organization. A familiar company name alone may not identify the right subscription.
Asana describes workspaces and organizations as shared spaces, rather than property controlled solely by their creator.
Agree who coordinates with colleagues, the family, and the estate representative. Name the people who can approve spending, decide retention, and communicate with clients. Keep a dated action log so two well-intentioned helpers do not make conflicting changes. Add the inventory to an online business continuity plan, with secure recovery locations rather than passwords.
2. Check administrative roles using a surviving account
Ask an existing administrator to sign in with their own authorized account and inspect the current roles. The role guidance distinguishes admins from super admins; guests cannot hold either organization role.
Test the controls the successor actually needs. Can they manage members, review security settings, and find the relevant teams? Do not assume that access to a project proves access to organization administration. Record gaps and assign someone to resolve each one. A successor should have a named account so later actions remain attributable.
Technical permissions do not decide who owns the business or may disclose client records. Confirm the scope of the handover with the responsible organizational or estate representative before granting broader access. Where staff use company single sign-on, involve the identity administrator and coordinate changes rather than improvising account recovery.
3. Prepare a focused support request if access is missing
If no surviving administrator can perform the necessary changes, contact Asana Support through its Help Center. Explain that the administrator is deceased, identify the space and subscription, and describe the exact control needed. Request guidance for authorized continuation or closure. Do not present a relative's possession of a password as proof of authority.
Gather available invoice identifiers, organization details, existing member information, and the representative's contact address. Ask what evidence is required and where to submit it securely. Avoid sending identity documents through a shared project or public discussion. Keep the case reference and one agreed contact to reduce conflicting requests.
The cited product documentation describes ordinary administration, not a universal bereavement transfer procedure. Treat recovery requirements and timing as questions for the specific case. Meanwhile, list urgent deadlines that authorized colleagues can already handle without changing account ownership or security settings.
4. Inventory projects and transfer responsibility deliberately
List essential projects with their URLs, current owner, members, next deadline, and proposed successor. Record whether each will continue, pause, or close. Include recurring operational work such as payroll preparation and client approvals, not just large projects with visible milestones. Ask team leads to check for work omitted from the inventory.
Asana's project ownership guidance places reassignment in the project Overview, under Project roles.
Use an authorized account and the permissions available for that project. After a change, ask the successor to open the project, inspect upcoming work, and confirm they can perform their duties. Update task assignees separately; the person responsible for a project does not necessarily perform every task. Record unresolved access rather than marking the whole transition complete prematurely.
5. Review sensitive records before broadening access
Separate client material, employee information, and personal notes. Identify which records need preservation and who is entitled to handle them. A family member helping with an estate may not need access to all agency projects, and a colleague managing deadlines may not need private family information.
The privacy guidance explains that projects private to members restrict access to their members.
Avoid solving a handover problem by sharing everything with the organization. Ask for targeted access and review confidentiality obligations before copying documents. Check linked files in other services separately. If authorized preservation is necessary, use the available permitted tools, record what was saved, and confirm the files open. A collection of links is not an independent archive.
6. Plan deactivation alongside task reassignment
Review unfinished assignments, project ownership, portfolios, and dashboards before removing access. Asana states that deactivation does not transfer ownership of projects, portfolios, or dashboards.
Build a reassignment list and verify each important item with its new responsible person. Coordinate the timing with the identity administrator because changes in a connected identity system may affect Asana access. If security requires immediate suspension, handle that promptly and document outstanding preservation and reassignment work for the authorized administrators.
After deactivation, inspect the resulting task handling for your configuration rather than assuming that an automatically generated project completes the handover. Check deadlines, private work that you are authorized to review, and operational dependencies. Record missing items for investigation without promising that every inaccessible record can be recovered.
7. Resolve billing and connected workflows separately
Find the billing contact, renewal date, payer, invoice history, and subscription scope. Ask the authorized decision maker whether to maintain the service during transition. Check the billing guidance: available controls vary, particularly for manually invoiced plans.
Verify that the appropriate person can receive billing communications and make approved changes. Keep confirmation of any ownership update, payment change, or cancellation. Do not cancel simply because an administrator has died while essential work still depends on the service. Check the applicable terms before assuming a refund or a particular cancellation date.
List integrations, rules, forms, and links to external files. Assign someone to test a representative workflow with a safe sample. An administrative role change does not demonstrate that all connected services still work. For each dependency, record the responsible person and any separately required authorized update.
8. Rehearse a handover while planning ahead
Create a one-page continuity note with the space identifier, coordinator, backup administrators, billing contact, project inventory, secure recovery location, and closure instructions. Keep secrets outside widely shared projects. Review the note after staff changes, new subscriptions, and changes to the company identity system.
For example, an agency could appoint an operations lead to maintain deadlines and a finance colleague to manage the renewal. A designated representative would approve retention of confidential records. Rehearse by asking each person to locate the information and controls they need using their own account. Record the review date and correct gaps while the current administrator can help.
Next steps
Choose a coordinator, identify the space, and verify surviving administrative access. Preserve appropriate records, assign project and task responsibilities, and coordinate deactivation with the identity team. Finish by checking billing and connected workflows. Keep a written record of what works, what remains unresolved, and who will follow up. A prepared successor makes continuity easier for both the organization and the family.