How do I remove someone from Asana without breaking all the rules I have created!?

[Violet_Goode1]

We create projects from one project template. In that template I have many rules that are set. The rules trigger off the task status which assigns the task and date to the account manager.

Last night my director let someone go and removed them from Asana. Since they are part of the trigger of the rules I now have MANY MANY broken projects that I need to go into one by one to fix. How could I have avoided this?

I understand that we need to re-assign currently assigned tasks, I am asking more specifically about the rules that are now broken and therefore not working for any account manager. Please advise so I can create a better game plan going forward.

[lpb]

Welcome, @Violet_Goode1, and sorry!

For the immediate need, continuing what you’re doing, perhaps enlisting other project admins if you find you don’t have access is something you can do immediately.

Your Asana (Super) Admin may be able to use Work Mode in the Admin Console (check help.asana.com for more details if this is available to you and will help).

Support may be able to help you so I would contact them and make this request: see How to contact our Support Team.

Finally, in the future, following my Community Tips > Forum Leader tips should help avoid this:

Remove/Offboard/Deprovision (or Pause) a User from an Organization, and what to do beforehand

Update 2025 10 03 thanks to @Developer_Support which is addressed at the Asana API but contains pertinent info generally as well: What happens when I delete a user using the Asana API? - #6 by Developer_Support Update 2025 06 18 thanks to @Nao_Kumazaki: When a user is deleted (deprovisioned) from the Admin Console, all tasks assigned to that user are collected into a project and assigned to the Organization Admin.* If this project is assigned to a Super Admin, the Super Admin will autom…

Thanks,

Larry

[Violet_Goode1]

I appreciate your answer but this doesn’t really solve my issue and I can’t image I am the only one this is happening to. My issues is not with tasks but with the rules I created in my project template. To simplify things we use one project template for all account managers. The person that was removed was part of an ‘otherwise if’ rule, so when they where removed, it broke the rule for everyone. The only other thing I can think is to not do ‘otherwise if’ and have a seperate rule for each account manager in the project template. That’s not ideal because that increases the number of rules in my template.

[Jan-Rienk]

That’s tough.

This is why I advise against adding rules to templates, and if possible prevent rules that are bound to people directly.

A good alternative (if you have Enterprise) would be to use a bundle, as it will allow you to centrally edit rules for a group of projects.

Streamline work using Bundles

Bundles are meant for managing work at scale. They allow you to easily add and sync sets of sections, custom fields, rules, and/or task templates to projects and templates. In this article, I’m sharing good practice on how to work with bundles effectively. Content When to use a bundle How to find your bundle – The usual way – The shortcut How to use the preview tab – Overview – Details – Manage access – Editing a bundle – Adding/removing a bundle – More actions H…

What was the “otherwise if” condition exactly? If it was to check the assignee I might be able to provide you with another workaround.

[Violet_Goode1]

Okay, I hear you. We do not have enterprise but we are growing and probably should. We do have one project that is called the Project Tracker - that shows what tasks are assigned to whom for all projects across the org. It’s basically a communal My Tasks - also because I couldn’t get people to use My Tasks but for some reason they love the Project Tracker. I am now thinking that my rules should be in the project tracker and not the template so that we don’t have a bunch of projects floating around with bad/old/broker rules. Hope that makes sense. Appreciate your help.

[lpb]

@Violet_Goode1,

I’m sorry you didn’t find my reply helpful.

Since @Jan-Rienk has stepped in, I’ll defer to him.

As you reveal more about your workflow, there are some warning flags (for me at least). I don’t feel that the Forum is interactive enough to do workflow design, which can often require both a more collaborative and holistic approach.

Thanks,

Larry