Cross information between projects according a unique field

English Forum Tips and Tricks
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Hi there, is it possible to cross data from different projects?
For example:

  • I have a project which is a CRM with all data of my suppliers
  • I have another project where I have all projects WIP by each supplier and want to introduce the mail of each supplier
    Could Asana introduce authomatically the mail of each supplier if there is a unique field to be crossed in both projects?
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2

Hi @Anna_BoldĂş ,

  • How does this look? A project with projects is not technically a thing in Asana, so I I’m not sure I understand.

What do you mean with crossing? Do you mean for Asana to find a task or project with the same name and automatically add values to these?

What can be done is the following:

  • A task can get a custom field value.
  • If the custom field is added to the library, it can be added to a second project.
  • If you add the same task to that second project with multi-homing, the value for that field will sync across all projects that have that task multi-homed.

This works the same for project custom fields in a portfolio. Just replace “project” with “portfolio”, and “task” with “project”.

Does that answer your question?

3

Hi Jan!
Here I explain again in different words. Hope it is more clear now:

  • I have a project A as a CRM including all my suppliers data
  • I have a project B with all tasks to be done. Each task can be done by a different supplier.
  • When adding a new task in project B, and filling the field “Supplier name” which could be a custom field, I would like Asana to look for the email of that supplier in project A and add it in project B.
    It is not having a field in the library and having the task in both projects. It is about relating info from diferent projects. Similar as VLOOKUP in Excel

Hope I was clearer now. Thank you for your help!

4

I don’t think Asana can do this.

A couple of workarounds that could help:

1. Add the supplier tasks as subtasks

If you convert the supplier tasks to be a subtask of the supplier (one time action for every new task) then you can easily click through to the parent task and find the email.

2. Take it up one level.

Store your suppliers as projects in a portfolio rather than tasks in a project.

  1. Make sure the email field is a library field.
  2. Convert your suppliers to projects, and add them to a portfolio.
  3. Add tasks to your supplier projects to easily click through to the project overview (maybe set that as a default) or the portfolio to view the email value.

An automation could work if you maintain a single select a list of suppliers. But if you have many suppliers that may be a hassle to set-up/maintain.

If you have AI Studio that might make it easier to create a rule that adds the task to the right project.

If you want I can move this to Tips and Tricks . As there are a lot more people in that part of the forum it increases the chances of getting a fitting solution to your challenge.

5

Ok thanks. Let’s move it to #tips. I’ll explore the options you are suggesting but it doesn’t look like it will fit our needs.
We are exploring other workarounds with external automations.
Thank you!

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:white_check_mark:

@Bryan_TeamKickstart Do you have tips for Anna?

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@Jan-Rienk - yes, thanks for asking! AI Studio is perfect for this.

@Anna_Boldú - here’s a video on how to create an rule to do exactly what you’re asking:

Here’s the prompt I used:
Check the value in the “Supplier Name” field in [@MENTION PROJECT B]

Find the task with a matching task name in the [@MENTION PROJECT A]

Then populate that email in the “Email” field for the corresponding task in [@MENTION PROJECT B]

IMPORTANT: Your AI Instructions settings must match what I showed in the video.

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Of course! The solution was staring me in the face but I couldn’t see it :laughing:

Sounds like a cool usecase to also post in AI Studio :slight_smile:

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@Anna_Boldú, one caveat I feel I should make is that @Bryan_TeamKickstart’s solution introduces redundancy.

If the contact email changes there will be a lot of tasks with an out of date email.

That might be a small problem with quick throughput times and infrequent email changes, but I feel I should mention it nonetheless as I’ve never met any redundancy that doesn’t eventually lead to mistakes being made.

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@Jan-Rienk - amigo, amigo. Don’t second guess the power of the mighty AI. :wink:
(For the record, for all who are reading this, I have learned SO much from JR – the guy is absolutely brilliant. I’m just teasing him here – but the solution below really does work and will prevent 96.37% of possible errors or some similar percentage)

Just add some additional triggers to the rule in Project B (to make sure it runs based on many different possible edits to the task) and then add this to the end of the AI Instructions in the rule:

–
If the “Email” field for the task in [@MENTION PROJECT B] already has a value, check the corresponding task in [@MENTION PROJECT A] again to make sure the email of the task in [@MENTION PROJECT B] matches the one in [@MENTION PROJECT A] .
The email field in [@MENTION PROJECT A] is always the most accurate and should be used as the reference for all email updates for this task.

–
As an important safety/data accuracy note: @Jan-Rienk’s point is actually very valid though. This prompt will help in most, maybe almost all, …but not all situations. So, if an old, completed task, having an outdated email is a high-risk or high-cost issue, I would not recommend fully trusting the solution I proposed.

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Hahaha, love the tone and your video’s @Bryan_TeamKickstart :wink:

I don’t want to spoil the fun, but this might be a bit of an expensive solution looking at the amount of processing power/tokens needed.

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@Jan-Rienk - ok, valid. Expensive for customers on Advanced (limited to 1,500 actions per month). For those on Enterprise, … unlimited FTW!
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