A solution to ensure rules work correctly for each project created from a template project!

In this post I’m going to do my best to provide a solution I have been using for clients to solve this issue while we wait to have it fixed by the Asana Team :raised_hands:

I have reach out to the support team before and they just confirmed this is how template project works: "After looking into it, our engineering team confirmed to me that it is of natural behavior in Asana for the rules within a project template to be paused when applied to a task being converted to a project. We appreciate you taking the time to bring this matter to our attention and how it can be a bother. We completely agree with this and are already working to build out a change in this. You can expect to see this added functionality where the rules won’t pause in the coming in the near future."

The initial discussion I found it here

Learn what we have been implementing for teams as a solution to make sure they can use rules in their projects, specifically for template projects, because as of right now rules in template projects are “paused” and often times teams create so many projects that have so many rules they do not want to have a task that reminds them to “activate” the rules everytime a new project is created, at the end that is why they build systems and automation!

For this example, the rules involved approval tasks. In Asana we have 3 options where to choose to provide approvals in tasks. For this process we used them in the following way:
:white_check_mark: When we mean to indicate we confirm to move forward with the next step, or we have received the approval.
:warning:When feedback or changes has been requested.
:x:When at the due time of the approval task we have not received confirmation or response.

When the approval task is marked as “Request changes” or “Rejected” this completes the task, so to maintain the entire history of the task in one place we make use of Rules to open back the task and update the due date 3 days after so that we maintain the loop until it has been closed.

Watch the following video for more understanding - it is not ideal, it is not perfect, and certainly it is not scalable for larger teams, I have been able to do this workaround for teams with less than 10 team members but they create more than 10 projects per week, so imagine having to “activate” between 5 to 10 rules at minimum per project, is a lot to remember and follow up with, and creating a task to remember to do so it doesn’t work, these teams want their work automated and not having to do this manual work everytime there is a new project.

:fire:

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Very cool :slightly_smiling_face:

Interesting idea but I am confused: the first trigger was “task moved to section X”. But if the project is private, no one can move tasks to this section, as they don’t see it…

Also it has the limitation of not working for new tasks, but only for tasks initially within the template.

But still an interesting idea!

Good question @Bastien_Siebman !

Tasks are added to that private project automatically from the template, all tasks that require the use of the rule are multi-homed to this private project. In this example we needed to create sections because there are 6 phases in this project (it takes almost a year for their product development process).

Tasks that require approval are multi-home to the private project:
tasks that require approval are multi-home to the private project

We create sections because each phase has different actions based on the rejection:
we create sections because each phase has different actions based on the rejection

This is applicable for a template project where the tasks that require approval are already defined, as a solution for having all rules “paused” and not “activated” for anytime they use the template.

If they need to create new approval tasks it also works, because we created “template tasks” inside the project, and the approval task is also multi-home with the private project.
template task inside a template project

Again is not the perfect solution, but they had an entire CRM we built in Asana, with multiple requrests per month, projects are created automatically, tasks assigned, etc, and the important part that is the “automation” of the project is not actually automated and requires manual work, is a bit disappointing.

:fire:

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great…interesting…thanks

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Hi Barbara! I am creating a similar workflow and have the same issue that rules do not work on new projects that converted from a task (Intake Form)… have you seen any other solutions either from Asana or that you created? I created the rules in a project template but they just don’t work when a new form is filled out.
Thank you!