Asana for massive workflows that need an abundance of rules (help me creatively get around the 50 rule limit)

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I need to figure out the best creative way to get around the 50 rule limit on a project.

The process workflow I need to create is very large and needs to be automated as much as possible, essentially needing more than 50 rules. The rules are mainly based on custom fields.

We’ve talked about breaking out the larger workflow into multiple projects that sit in a portfolio, but I’m afraid that will remove some of the needed automation availability. For instance, if the workflow is multiple projects, then when one area of the project is complete, we cannot automatically have it open the next project (essentially the next steps in the workflow) with a rule. (Rules don’t work project to project, right?).

Also, some of the tasks in project 1 of the workflow may need to be multi-homed into another project that sits later in the workflow. When multi-homed, does the rule associated with the task from the original project count toward the rule limit in the secondary project? If so, that will eat up the available rules and the solution of a multi-project workflow is not useable.

If you have any insight to think through this with me, I’d love some help. My brain is getting tired. :slight_smile:

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I don’t believe so and that was my solution: multi-home tasks into at least another project to get access to 20 more rules.

The other solution could be to rely on other automation solutions like make.com…

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Thanks @Bastien_Siebman. I took a look at make.com and I’m thinking that may work. I’m wondering if @Michaela_S and @abass might have some insight into how to use Make to help with this bigger process.

@Rebecca_McGrath is there some documentation or someone at Asana who can confirm the question above about rules and multi-homed tasks? Thank you!

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As Rules are project based and not task based, if a Rule from Project A is affecting a task that is multi-homed in Project B, this Rule won’t count towards the 50 Rule limit for Project B.

I hope this helps!

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Just an update on Make.com from my client who was testing things out today.

"I think I just found a fatal flaw as it relates to our specific need: rules created in Make.com do not apply to Asana project templates, only the original project where they were built.

We could create all the rules we need on a “Deal Flow Template”, but those rules only apply to that template project itself, not projects created from the template (unlike rules created in Asana templates). My assumption is that we’d have to duplicate all applicable rules in Make.com for each new instance of the deal template… probably not a scalable approach."

Back to the drawing board! :slight_smile:

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Paula FYI Flowsana rules you create in a project template will, like Asana rules, automatically be created in any project created from that template. (And Flowsana has no rule limits.)

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@Phil_Seeman thank you for that reminder. This may be our best bet for sure. A couple of questions for you regarding Flowsana.

  1. How quickly do rules fire in Flowsana when there are multiple rules (over 50) in multiple projects across the organization? I know in the auto-adjust due date workflow, there is a significant slowdown on due dates updating as they go through the Asana API. We are trying to prevent the scenario where a slow response to an automation firing would prompt the user to manually make updates and perhaps mess up the design of the workflow.

  2. Also, I read the note on your website: Be mindful about creating multiple rules which have interactions with each other; currently, there is no guarantee of the order in which multiple rules will be executed in a particular project. Can you share a scenario when this might pose an issue for the user? Trying to think this through fully.

Thank you!

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Hi @Paula_Holsberry,

  1. It’s really hard to say in terms of a specific length of time; it depends on a number of factors. It is true that, as you might imagine, when there are lots of rules in a project it will take longer as Flowsana has to check each trigger to see if that rule should run.

  2. Oooh I’m so glad you mentioned that Help text as it’s no longer true and I didn’t realize it was still there! I just updated it to the correct current behavior, which is: Note that multiple rules within a project will execute in the order they were created; this order is reflected in the order that rules are listed on your My Workflows page.

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