Has anyone used ASANA and SLACK? I looked into SLACK and I am not sure if SLACK will offer my team efficiency that ASANA does not do yet. Looking for some ideas and thoughts.
The tempting option of SLACK is the desktop notifications they offer, but that still does not vouch for an integration on my end. So looking for any experts who use the integrations. Thanks!
I believe @lucaspellan uses both Slack and Asana at Flatbook and they have defined very clear guidelines of when to use Asana v. Slack depending on how quickly you need a response.
Lucas- would you be able to expand on that?
In the meantime, you can check out the webinar we did with Lucas where he explains how they defined the flow chart for communications (around 7:11)
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I had Asana integration with Slack.
I had Asana tasks related notifications sent to Slack channel.
@ashitvora thanks for the note- Iād love to hear more about what types of notifications you sent to a Slack channel, it sounds super helpful. Do you have tasks from multiple projects sent into different channels, or just one?
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I have the integration - ironically I use it mostly to give me a Badge/Notification on my computer that there is something new in Asana ā¦ I will do other things with Slack - but lets be honest the badges should be something Asana can give us.
In terms of Slack channel telling me about Asan changes - I can pick which projects, but I would still like a bit finer setting of what goes to channel
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@RashadIssa Iām intrigued by this topic, particularly because I use Slack and Asana, but for separate purposes (not urgent vs. urgent and/or conversation).
It sounds like youāre looking primarily for desktop notifications. On the subject of notifications, Iāve gotten into the habit of checking my Asana Inbox about every hour, so rather than receiving notifications, I just have a pattern for checking back hourly (as I might with email). On the other hand, for something urgent a colleague might assign a task to me and then ping me on Slack to make sure Iāve seen the urgent task. And, of course, I use Slack to casually converse.
Is the system I list here something that youāve tried, or something that might appeal to you? Out of curiosity, what is your current approach to Asana Inbox vs. Slack notifications?
Stickermule has written a really great article on how they use Slack and Asana in concert. Take a look here: The Sticker Mule guide to Slack | Blog | Sticker Mule
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@Alexis Thank you so much for your response. I tried using Slack and it did not appeal to me simply because I have the habit of keeping my ASANA page open as my landing page on the browser and my inbox is checked regularly too. So that is why Slack did not fix a problem for me. The only, which I totally agree with you, is that desktop notifications. This is the only thing that would be great to have ASANA develop for us. We use Skype for Business in the organisation for instant conversations. So that is why I was trying to get a sense on how people use the integration
I wish Asana could just replace Slack. The ādiscussions,ā if revamped, would probably make Slack irrelevant, since Slack is mainly used for team communications. Honestly (and I really hate when people say "honestly) but I use it for emphasis here-- letās just not pretend that we love using more programs than less. The fact that I even need to explore Slack is kind of annoying. This is because when I implement something, even if Iām comfortable with using it, I have to teach my whole team to use it; usually I am implementing Asana for a team of less than 5 people; The fact that Slack ākind ofā can replicate some things that Asana does, really helps the more ignorant people from finding out the full power of Asana. I donāt really even see the value of Slack right now given the discussion feature in Asana, but thatās probably because Iāve never delved into Slack and fully used it with a team, so thereās my caveat.
TLDR: Asana should just beef up itās discussion platform to make Slack somewhat useless for people using it just for that
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So after the efforts to make it work and trying the SLACK notification on couple of projects with couple of channels, the final decision is that SLACK is not giving me any efficiency but noise. Hoping ASANA could launch desktop notifications with some cool features, then that would be problem solved!
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Thanks for the update and insight, @RashadIssa. In an ideal world, what types of notifications would you like to get push desktop notifications for?
I could imagine that push notifications for everything in your Inbox would be too much, but Iām wondering your opinion on the right level for this.
Would ā@-mentionedā comments suffice, or would you also want it for updates to tasks youāre assigned to? Let us know your thoughts so we can pass them along to the team.
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I agree, notifications for everything in inbox becomes too much noise. I would like to have the ability to filter my notifications. For example, I can choose to get notifications on certain progress updates in projects. Or I can select to get notifications every time someone @-mentions me. The more flexible the set up is, the better it will work for me and for the execs in the business.
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Oooh I like this push notifications idea, too. 
In general, the ability to be proactive rather than reactive about what I see in my inbox would be neat. We obviously have the ability to adjust settings within projects and teams, but I hear what youāre saying, @RashadIssa, and of course the Slack style push notifications would be a cool feature. Although hmmm sometimes being totally proactive about the inbox could lead to a āyou donāt know what you donāt knowā situation. I do like that if youāre added as a collaborator on something you can choose to unfollow it right from your inbox. I would be afraid if I was 100% proactive about my inbox settings that Iād miss out on something important and things would start falling through the cracks.
Anyhow, I donāt want to take this thread too of topic, so Iāll stop there. 
LOL @Alexis I understand what you mean, but I think if we take into account who is using ASANA, we wonāt fall into the unknown. For a board of executives who are added as collaborators to certain projects on ASANA, it would be good for them to have the option to opt in or opt out from any desktop notification they get. Opting out from certain instant notifications does not mean that they are getting other updates on different projects within stand up meetings or in the monthly status updates. It just means that they chose to be hands on on other projects 
Good point!
I use the integration and Iām also our company administrator. Iāve only set up the integration globally for new project notifications in slack. We have an āAsanaā channel that posts the new Asana project, number and link. Its kind of a company-wide notification of new projects. I decided not to go down the path of notifications for specific channels from specific projects because there are simply too many to connect. But, the integration does let you connect a specific project to a channel, so it would be OK for one-off needs. I havenāt used it for personal tasking.
The other good feature of the integration is that when you post a link to an asana task in slack, it unfurls the task details. Our team uses slack for all instant messaging and we do not use conversations in asana. Its very useful when you are talking to someone to just post a link to the asana task or project and then go from there.
I find the integration useful for those purposes.
Thank you for these thoughts, @Noel_Howell. Itās fun to see people in the community outlining their workflows and processes in such detail. So helpful! This is what makes the community so great and such a nice resource for everyone! Feeling very happy about this.
I didnāt realize that when you post a link to an Asana task in Slack, it unfurls the task details! Learn something new everyday This seems like an essential feature to help people get on the same page to start the conversation. Great to know the integration has been useful to you.
I have not found the Slack updates from Asana to be useful at all. We have too many tasks. Nobody needs to know every time a task is marked complete, deleted, and added.
Our use of Slack predates Asana and itās very useful to us for real-time chat and taps on the shoulder. We donāt use it all the time (not even daily), but if we canāt have a meeting, and especially when weāre traveling, its a way to communicate in an immediate way, e.g. āHey my flightās been delayed, someone let the taxi company know Iāll be there at 5:15, not 3:30.ā
I use Slack in relation to Asana when I want to highlight something, e.g. āHey folks, Bob and I had a short convo about Blergh that you might want to look at [link to conversation attached].ā We use Slack in this way with documents we store in Google Drive, so itās a natural extension for us.
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Adding my two cents - I donāt find the Asana notifications in Slack to be that useful (thatās what the Asana inbox is for). The way I see the two working together is - Asana comments and conversations for all task related conversations (most of your communication). Slack for quick questions, comments and gifs!
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Thanks for all the feedback! As a bit of a peek under the hood, the Slack integration with Asana was built by Slack, and, frankly, theyād be happy for us to take ownership whenever we get the bandwidth on our integrations team 
. This would let us make the integration feel better tuned to how people would like to use Asana with Slack, so all of this feedback, especially nice-to-haves, is great!
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