Custom rule conditions Due Date After/Before don't have relative dates

I want to make a rule that if a task is added to my task and has a due date of within the week (but not today), it goes to the “Next 7 days” section. If more than 7 days, to the “Future” section and if today, then to “Today”. It was at all not possible with the old rules system that didn’t have if conditions on triggers but even with the new system the Due Date is after… condition only allow specific dates fro the calendar, which make little sense for rules and don’t allow using them in the way that I described - sorting new tasks into sections based on the due date. Setting the Due date is possible with a relative text (see the second screenshot), so why not checking for dates using relative dates, too? Please implement this.

7 Likes

Hi @Jacob_Gorban,

Instead of the trigger being “Task is added to My tasks”, what if you make the trigger “Due date is approaching” which allows for relative dates?

Due date is approaching is already used to move tasks from the later sections to those closer in time. This has always been possible. Also, this trigger only runs at midnight, so not good for sorting now.

For example, if I have a task in my Recent Tasks without a due date and I set a due date to 10 days in the future, I want the task then to move automatically to my “Future” section. “Due date” trigger can’t do that. It can be used to move from Future to “Next week” or from “Next week” to Today sections at midnight.

1 Like

Ah, OK.

FYI if you’re interested, you should be able to accomplish what you want with the “If task starts or is due in…” trigger in our Flowsana automation: it runs immediately when a date is changed (in addition to running at midnight), and also it treats dates as “within” as opposed to Asana’s exact dates.

I’m surprised by this as well. I struggle to find very many use cases for rules that use absolute dates at all, unless it’s a short-lived rule, and I would be surprised if a lot of rules are intended to be short-lived. Is there a request for Asana to reconsider this? Enabling relative dates should be easy for them since they use them elsewhere.

10 Likes

Currently, Asana’s automation rules only support date-based conditions with fixed dates (e.g., “due date is before” or “due date is after” a specific date). Expanding the conditions to include dynamic date ranges would provide more flexibility in managing task deadlines, particularly for ongoing task monitoring in “My Tasks.”

Proposed Feature
The condition should include options to check if a date is:
Within the next [X] days
Passed by [X] amount of days

Benefits
• Supports automation for tasks newly added to “My Tasks” that may already fall within a defined date range that would trigger an action with the “date is approaching”-trigger.
• Ensures tasks remain accurately flagged or categorized when dates are updated, keeping workflows aligned without manual intervention.

7 Likes

This would be a useful feature for our request management workflow. If someone fills the request form with a due date within the next 2 days, email the assignee (for example).

This is a huge failure of logic. This Rule cannot work without the relative option.

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indeed… a big miss from developers. I was hoping that they would add it for months now and still no improvements :frowning:
I use lots of other workflow systems and they all have relative or variables that can be set with relative values. Ridiculous really!

I’m finding lots of possible use cases for relative due dates in conditionals, especially in the management of My Tasks.

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this would be so useful to implement sprint/agile stuff

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I would really appreciate this feature being added. Just give us options like “Due Date is After Today”

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New to Asana and rules, and went to create this rule today. Hoping that Asana implements this soon.

Hi @Adam_Sledd , welcome to the forum :waving_hand:

If I have understood the ask of the original post, this feature has been available for several months now. When you click on the due date within the rule action, look for the Relative button to set due date, or start dates, X days before or after date type fields.

@Forum-team , agree to move to Product Feedback > Features Launched ?

1 Like

Thank you for your reply. My request was for the ability to set a rule based on the due date being relative to the end of a calendar week or month. It appears that I misunderstood the original ask in this thread. I was attempting to sort tasks into sections for the week and month. Aside from calendar view, is there a way to do this?

Thanks for your help,

Adam Sledd, MSW, CRS, CFRS, CRSS
he/him/his
National Recovery Support Services Director
UNITY RECOVERY

Hi @Adam_Sledd , sure! In the list view, rry using the Group button on the top right side of the header and select Group by Due date (instead of Sections). You may want to click on the ... on the right of that pop up to ‘Hide empty groups’.

No rules required :slight_smile:

I am incredibly frustrated by the lack of this feature. Is this not on the roadmap because Flowsana exists? My organization (a nonprofit) is unlikely to want to pay for a third-party service just to get the ability to use relative dates when evaluating a rule. But without this feature, changes to due dates often require a great deal of manual intervention to keep work organized, even on just My Tasks.

2 Likes

I just learned you can solve this with AI studio!

Hi @Susan_Pace , perhaps you missed my comment above:

@Forum-team can we move to Product Feedback > Features Launched ?

1 Like

Hi @Barry_Finder , welcome to the forum :waving_hand:

That’s great that AI Studio can do this for you :+1:
..just watch those credit limits :grimacing: