Would be nice to be able to automate to say “Assign to the person with role of “legal approver” in this project” as opposed to 1 specific human - since the person in this role may change project to project but we still want to use the same project template each time.
I like this concept! I also put in a request for a similar idea around setting a rule that would assign tasks to the project owner. That way you can create one template and have it be really flexible.
@assign tasks to project
@Marie should these be merged? 
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My team uses a lot of projects and we use a template to ensure that the tasks within the projects are consistent. The project owner gets assigned to all of the tasks within the project. I’d like to see an automation where when the project is created, the project owner is automatically set as the assignee for all tasks within the project. For instance “when a task is added to this project, assign to ‘Project Owner’”
In the interim, I know that I can create one template per team member so that each template can have a rule to assign to the specific person that I designate the template is for. i.e. in “Jenny’s Customer Renewal Project Template” have a rule that says “when a task added to this project assign to Jenny”
Thanks @Jenny_Claar! I’ve actually merged your post into this thread as it is slightly more general than your initial request 
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Hey @anon24752152, welcome to the forum!
I understand how you would like to be able to just have the project know who to assign the task since the project already has the role owners assigned in the overview, and I agree. In the meantime, if you’d like to try another avenue here is a workaround for this that I use.
Scenario 1
I create a custom field with generic roles, then I create a rule specific to the project so that anytime the custom field “Role” has “X” value assign the task to “PERSON”.
Scenario 2
If this this a template I still create that role field and then make mass assignments using the project filter & bulk edit.
I hope one of these will help you in the interim.
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Hi @Christine_Bolton ,
Thank you for the tips. It is amazing as it works for me in the interim. Greatly appreciated from the scenario 2 that you mentioned on project Filtering and Bulk Edit
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Hi there!
Thanks for sharing your feedback with us. I’m happy to share we’re rolling out Variable Assignees in Templates!
With Variable Assignees in Templates, you’ll be able to create a project role in your template and assign tasks to a project role, giving your team guidance when they use the template.
How does it work?
To add a project role in templates, convert a project into a template/edit an existing template and you’ll see “Project roles” in the left hand side bar to add different project roles.
When you’re ready to kick off your project, you’ll be prompted to set an assignee for each project role
When?
This feature has already begun rolling out in stages!
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This is a great addition. Are there further features in the works for this? For example, I have project boards being created from an automation - converting a task to a project. When using the updated template with roles added, there is no prompt when creating the new board to assign roles. It would be great to be prompted by the conversion OR at minimum be able to add the same project roles on the overview page and the automation could run after the board has already been created.
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B2.5 on To confirm, the Variable Assignee only works on tasks in the template, not on tasks generated by rules in the template, correct?
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Correct.
@Mikaela_Sanford @Randi_Jacobs – This might be something you may want to look into,
Hi there!
Thanks for sharing your feedback with us. I’m happy to share we’re rolling out Variable Assignees in Templates!
With Variable Assignees in Templates, you’ll be able to create a project role in your template and assign tasks to a project role, giving your team guidance when they use the template.
How does it work?
To add a project role in templates, convert a project into a template/edit an existing template and you’ll see “Project roles” in the left hand side bar to add different project roles.When you’re ready to kick off your project, you’ll be prompted to set an assignee for each project role
When?
This feature has already begun rolling out in stages!
I’m unable to see the ability to click in role assignments when trying to use this feature. Is this a bug or an issue with the way I’m converting a task to a project?
Hi @anon89336077 , welcome to the forum 
This is currently expected behaviour which I recently posted in a separate feedback request (which you can vote on), hoping project roles will make their way into rules converting tasks into projects:
Ability to assign Project Roles when converting a task to a project using a template
Thanks Richard, I voted on that request But it does look like there’s some way to use the variable assignee since I have it in my Asana? What would be the correct way to use this for our template?
Hi @anon89336077 , sorry I understood above that you were looking to assign project roles while converting a task into a project.
But, yes, you can definitely use variable assignees based on project roles for your project templates, as long as you are on the Business or Enterprise plan. Have a look at the Asana guide article here.
Unfotrunately, what the guide fails to (currently) show is how to actually apply variable assignees to tasks in a template. You need to click on the ‘+’ icon which will also take you to the ‘project role’ creation page if you haven’t already set up the project roles in the template.
Hope this helps! 
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WOW this is the first time someone has been able to finally make sense of the intent and explain HOW to actually use this! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I would add that the guide also does not mention is whether or not this auto-assignment to tasks per the project roles can be leveraged AFTER the project creation from the template. It appears that is NOT the case though.
I’m adding additional detail to your other post on your Ability to assign Project Roles when converting a task to a project using a template thread
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I second a vote for adding assigning by role to tasks created by rules! And for Form Approvers too. Thanks!
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