Hi everyone,
For our end-of-year countdown, I wanted to share the one workflow that quietly changed everything about how our teams handle internal requests.
There is a quote often attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that became our north star:
We used that idea to move from scattered inboxes and lost emails to one simple Asana form that now powers a full internal ticketing system across all departments.
The Pain: Too Many Inboxes, Not Enough Clarity
Before Asana became our helpdesk:
- Each department had its own email address for requests
- Accountability was low and follow-up was messy
- It was hard to see what came in, what was stuck, and what was completed
- Reporting on email was almost impossible
- Things fell through the cracks, and no one had a single place to track what they had requested
We needed one door in for everyone, without forcing every department to work in exactly the same way.
The Core Idea: One Form In, Many Workflows Out
We built a system where:
- Users see one clean form in Asana
- Behind the scenes, Asana routes each request to the right department project
- Each department can still run its own rules, workflows, and automations
So from the requester’s perspective, life is simple. From the team’s perspective, the system is powerful and flexible.
How It Works (At a Glance)
- One hidden “brain” project
- Houses the main form, all custom fields, and key automations
- Is only visible to admins and owners
- Keeps all the complexity behind the scenes
- One intake project per department
- IT Requests, Communications Requests, Facilities, etc.
- Each department works fully in their own project
- They can assign tasks, add subtasks, and manage work in their preferred style
- One intelligent form for everyone
- Basic fields shared by all requests: requester name, description, due date, etc.
- A single-select “Department” field that asks, “Which department do you need help from?”
- Conditional logic reveals extra questions depending on the department selected
- A shared Ticket Number field
- A custom field (Ticket ID) that lives in the hidden project
- Is applied to every ticket across all departments
- Gives each request a unique ticket number and makes reporting and searching easy
- Saved search = “My tickets” for every user
- Everyone has a saved search that shows tasks they created where Ticket ID is not empty
- This becomes their personal “My tickets” view, across all departments
What Departments Can Do With It
Here is where it gets fun. Because each department has its own intake project, they can:
- Build their own rules and automations
- Auto-assign new tickets based on request type, location, or priority
- Automatically add subtasks (checklists, QA steps, standard processes)
- Send automated “We received your request” messages
- Trigger follow-up tasks if more information is needed
- Schedule reminders, SLA deadlines, or handoffs using rules and custom fields
The intake is shared. The workflows are not. Each team gets to design the “inside” to match how they actually work.
Adding AI to the Mix
On top of the structure, there is a lot of room for AI to make this system even smarter. For example, AI can help with:
- Answering simple, straightforward questions before they even become full tickets
- Renaming tasks so that titles are clear, actionable, and consistent
- Analyzing the description and suggesting a better department if the request landed in the wrong place
- Drafting initial replies or checklists based on the type of request
- Highlighting missing information and prompting the requester or team to fill in gaps
The combination of one form + robust projects + AI gives us a ticketing system that feels simple on the surface but is very sophisticated underneath.
Why Our Teams Love This Setup
- Simple for users
One link, one form, every department. No more guessing which email address to use.
- Clean for departments
Each team sees only the custom fields that matter for them, in their own project.
- Accountable and trackable
Every ticket has a Ticket ID, a home project, and a clear owner.
- Searchable and reportable
We can filter by department, Ticket ID, requester, status, and more.
- Flexible and future-proof
We can keep adding rules, subtasks, and AI helpers without changing the intake experience.
For us, this setup is a very practical expression of that da Vinci quote:
“The user experience is simple, because the structure behind it is carefully designed.”
