🦸 Flowsana, an essential add-on in the Asana ecosystem

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Hi,

If you have been using Asana for long enough, you know Flowsana is the answer to many use cases and edge cases. Asana can’t do it all without making the tool complex, so the 3rd party app called Flowsana is often the answer.

I wanted to summarize what Flowsana can do by creating this post, which can act as a rallying point :muscle:

So here goes, feel free to contribute and suggest changes. This was built with the help and approval of the Flowsana team themselves. At the bottom you’ll find a list of specific things Flowsana can do that we found asked on the Forum and on Slack…

The official help center remains the source of truth and #1 resource.

↔️ Auto-Adjust Workflows

Shifting a task start date or due date will also shift its dependent tasks. It works for subtasks too! The feature can include or exclude weekends.

:watch: Dynamic-Duration Workflows

Instead of defining dates in a project template, simply define task durations (and lag time if applicable). Flowsana will take care of defining the dates and keep them up to date.

:gear: Rule-Based Workflows

This is basically the Asana Rules, but on steroids. See my other post The Asana automation bible: all the triggers and actions from Asana, Zapier, Flowsana, Make.com for all the triggers and actions Flowsana offers.

:studio_microphone: Forms Support

Flowsana allows you to make your forms smarter:

  1. add start and due dates for your form submissions
  2. assign the form to users based on information within the form fields
  3. send an email confirmation to the form submitter - and you can customize the subject and body of the email as you choose!
  4. add the submitter of the form as a Collaborator even when using an external form
  5. Asana currently only supports adding form submitters as collaborators if it’s an internal form

:hash: Hashtag Automation

Flowsana allows you to trigger actions simply by typing hashtags in the task’s description, which is especially useful when forwarding emails to Asana:

  1. add tags to a task
  2. assign the task to someone
  3. attach the task to additional projects and even sections within a project
  4. set due dates
  5. specify assignees and tags

For example, adding #proximity #Fri #nick lee section A will add your tag “proximity” to the task, will set its due date to this coming Friday, will assign it to Nick Lee, and will add it to Section A.

:money_with_wings: Pricing model

Please consult the Flowsana website for the latest info on pricing: How does Flowsana's pricing work? - Flowsana Help Center

Flowsana’s pricing works based on the concept of Billable Users. A Billable User is an Asana user who’s a member of a team having workflow-enabled projects. In short, not all licensed Asana users in your organization will be billed. Only users who are members of a team having Flowsana workflow-enabled projects. If the same user is a member of multiple teams, you only pay for them once.

:person_raising_hand: Q&A, an incomplete list

  1. Can I use date, people and multi-select custom fields in Flowsana? Not yet, it is in the works.
  2. Are there rules to get a project to automatically unlink so that a task doesn’t show up within a project where it no longer belongs? Flowsana has a “move task to project X” rule action which would allow you to unlink those tasks from any project.
  3. Is there a function for subtasks to inherit due dates from parent task card? Yes, in Flowsana. If you want to be adding new subtasks as the result of a rule trigger, our Add subtasks rule action allows the subtasks to be set with dates relative to the parent task’s due date.
  4. Do you have any triggers that could trigger rules during the day and not only on midnight? The date-based rules in Flowsana integration run right when a date changes, in addition to also running around midnight.
  5. Is there a rule that automatically puts a recently added task into a section based on the text in it? Yes, with Flowsana Rules feature, as Flowsana has a rule triggers for “If the task name contains the word or phrase _________” and " If the task description contains the word or phrase _________".
  6. Do we have the ability to add all tasks created by forms to be added to a certain section in a project? If you’re below the Asana Business or Enterprise, you can use our Flowsana integration’s rule capability to accomplish the same thing.
  7. Is it possible to have the Due date auto-populated in the Task Name based on the due date assigned to the task? You could do this with a Flowsana rule. It would look something like: If a task’s due date is set, Then modify its name to {task.Name} {task.DueDate}
  8. How can I create rules based on roles, not individual people? You can create a Flowsana rule action to notify an email address in a custom field.
  9. …

I hope this post helps clarify what Flowsana can do!

8 Likes
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Hello @Bastien_Siebman ! Thank you for this thorough list describing flowsana’s capabilities. One additional question I have is whether Flowsana can create sections for subtasks? Like in the image below:
image

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@Phil_Seeman the founder will be able to answer!

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Hi @anon54415044!

If you’re referring to Flowsana’s “Add subtasks” or “Add tasks” rule action, then yes, absolutely, if you include subtask sections in your subtask templates, they will be faithfully created when that template is added in a project.

If that wasn’t what you were asking about, let me know!

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@Phil_Seeman perfect!! That will do the trick. Looking forward to getting a Flowsana account today.

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Hi there - I’m wondering if you can advise on the following: I have a project where all tasks are submitted via a form. The form has multiple date fields, in addition to the overall task ‘due date’. I’ve already set up a rule to automatically create subtasks that correspond with each of the date fields captured by the form, for example - client kickoff, 1st draft due, launch study, etc. (which I’ve also linked to custom fields). I’m wondering if it’s possible to automatically assign the correct dates to these subtasks. I understand that Flowsana can help add date ranges relative to the parent task due date, but ideally I’d like to find a way to just link to the dates captured by the form – so the due date for the client kickoff subtask would automatically populate to the date that was submitted for client kickoff via the form. Appreciate any help!

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Hi @Jess_Ladd and welcome to the forum!

This is possible with the coming update to Flowsana; I’ll send you a Private Message with more info.