Best Practices for assigning task buckets to a group

#1

Howdy.

I have tasks automatically being brought into Asana from a form. I need to assign those tasks to a group of users (developers who will fix the bugs that clients enter into the form). Right now, they’re automatically being assigned to me, but they’re time-sensitive. So if I’m traveling or just not here, the developers won’t see them.

I’d rather not delegate to only one developer, because what if that person is gone?

I’d prefer to delegate to a role that’s really a group. Does Asana support that? If so, I’m wondering how that works.

I’m sure this has been discussed before; I just can’t find it with how I’m searching.

Thanks,

Chris

Check list (pre-flight check list)
#2

Hi @Chris_Stadler1,

Have you tried using a Zapier integration? It seems that it’s something that can be done.

Which tool do you use do create the form?

Best,
Millor

#3

I’m already using Zapier for the integration. My main issue is that I’d like to assign the tasks to a role-based “person” in Asana, and not a real person, since a real person can be out sick. It would be like creating a queue for a call center. I’m just not sure of the ramifications of that, and I’m wondering if someone’s already doing something similar.

Thanks for the answer though. Zapier is cash money.

#4

I think you have two choices: either assign a task to someone (that can be sick indeed), or add a task to a project (or add a tag) that people can go to when searching for the next task to do. Does that make sense?

Bastien
Asana Certified Pro, consultant, author and developer

#5

You could always create a dummy Asana account, to which all of the tasks would be assigned. We created an account called ‘Asana Reports’, mainly so that we could have a separate dashboard in order to build reports. The account’s email address is a distribution group that sends messages to four different people in our organisation. There’s no reason you couldn’t create an account titled ‘Developer Tasks’ or something, and save an advanced search report for all incomplete tasks assigned to that account. Everyone would be able to dip into that advanced search and see what needs to be done.

Bastien’s suggestion of using a project is probably easier, though. It all depends how you want to set it up.

#6

Good call for the fake accounts, always underestimate this one @Mark_Hudson

#7

Mark, it seems that you should be able to - with Zapier - include another field that indicates the type of task or role, that can then be associated with an individual based on the input to that field. For example, if the task type is “code review”, it gets assigned to “code review Teammate”. Yes?

#8

Hi Laura. I’ve never actually used Zapier, so I’m going to defer to other more learned people on that one. @paulminors, do you know if this is possible?

#9

Hi @Chris_Stadler1 in Zapier you could use the lookup table utility to pick a random user from a list. It’s random but at least you’d be able to pre-define the list with the developers you want these activities assigned to.

#10

As @Bastien_Siebman mentioned you could have the tasks automatically added to a project that includes the group of users as project members with task creation notifications on. This would notify that group of users when new submissions come in, and they can assign them out accordingly.