Delivering a Single Inbox Notification with Before/After Images

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Summary of the Goal

The objective is to notify 8 team members of an analytic change with a single inbox notification that displays the before and after pictures directly, while suppressing all other notifications:

  • Do not notify when the task is added to the project.

  • Do not notify or create inbox entries when users are added as collaborators.

  • Do not notify when the task is marked complete.

  • Ensure the only notification received is the final comment containing the inline before/after images and the user tags.

Current Process & Implementation

  1. Support Project Creation: A project named X-Analytic Changes is created.

  2. Project Notification Suppression: All members are added to X-Analytic Changes, and notifications for all members are explicitly turned off.

  3. Task Intake: When an analytic change request is received, it is multihomed into X-Analytic Changes.

  4. Automated Subtasks: The support project automatically creates two subtasks. One of these subtasks stores the @ URLs for all 8 members.

  5. Completion & Commenting:

    • The task is completed.

    • A before/after picture is pasted directly into a comment.

    • The 8 @ URLs are copied from the subtask and pasted at the very bottom of that same comment.

  6. Result: The comment posts, and the before/after images appear directly in all 8 inboxes where they can be expanded and reviewed.

Explanation of Settings and Sequences

Setting / Sequence Step

Specific Purpose

All users added with notifications turned off

Prevents Asana from sending an inbox notification or email to the members when a task is multihomed/added to X-Analytic Changes.
Multihoming the incoming task

Brings the task into the support project’s automated workflow without removing it from its original intake location.
Subtask storing the 8 @ URLs

Serves as a staging area so the person completing the task does not have to search for or manually type 8 separate user handles each time.
Pasting pictures and @ URLs in the same comment

Including the @ mentions inside the same comment submission as the uploaded images forces Asana to generate a mention notification containing the visual image content
Not adding them as collaborators prior to the comment

Ensures no early notifications (such as assignment changes, status changes, or collaborator additions) are triggered prior to the final proof being posted.

Is There a Better Way?

Based strictly on how Asana operates:

  1. Why Asana Rules Cannot Fully Automate This Step:
    Asana Rules cannot pull an uploaded task attachment or image and insert it into an automated comment. Because the before and after pictures must be included visually, a user must manually paste or attach the images into the comment box.

  2. Streamlining Opportunity (Team Mention):

    • Currently, the process requires maintaining a subtask with 8 individual @ URLs and copy/pasting them.

    • If an Asana Team is created containing those 8 members (e.g., @Analytic-Stakeholders), you can type that single @TeamName at the bottom of the comment instead of copying and pasting 8 separate URLs. (Does not currently send messages anywhere)

    • This preserves the exact same inbox notification and image display behavior while eliminating the need for the helper subtask and the copy/paste step.

  3. Can we @ people without adding them as collaborators?

    • This would allow me to close the ticket after sending the comment, the normal event order.

Thanks for any ideas you have.

Jason

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Hi @Jason_Fujinaka

Thanks for documenting this workflow! At the moment, Asana doesn’t support automatically inserting uploaded images into Rule-generated comments, nor does it allow a Team mention to notify all Team members.

For the workflow you’re looking for, these would be great candidates for Product Feedback, especially the ability to include images in automated comments and notify multiple people without adding them as collaborators. This would also allow others with the same use case to upvote the request. Thank you!