I’m looking for a way of creating two automatic rules:
Moving task from one project to another without creating its copy. The rule must be triggered by age of task since it was completed. This is meant to create some kind of automatic archive.
Copying task from one project to another but without making them interdependent. I would like to keep this task completed in one project and create copy “to do” in another one. So far, I just found option to make the copy, but any change made on the copy has reflection on the base project and the other way around.
Currently, Rules don’t remove tasks from one project and assign them to another. I assume that is what you meant here but perhaps you are hoping to multi-home the task to another project which wouldn’t create a copy but instead allow the task to exist in two places. Rules DO have this ability today. You just aren’t able to remove a project from a task through Rules. Also, there isn’t an trigger for the age of a task (whether the age is defined by “time since completion” or “time past due”). Perhaps these are things that Flowsana can help with. Can it @Phil_Seeman?
I think what you are describing here is the multi-home feature I mention above - where the task isn’t copied as much as it lives in two places. When you multi-home, tasks are interdependent as they are actually the same object in Asana. If you want to be able to complete one task separately from another then you need to create a duplicate task which unfortunately is also an action that isn’t supported by Rules. Again, maybe Flowsana can help with that @Phil_Seeman?
Flowsana can get you part of the way to your goals but not all the way.
Flowsana can do this; unlike Asana, Flowsana’s rules have a “move to project” action.
Flowsana does have pretty comprehensive date-based rule triggers, but they look at a task’s start or due date, not its completion date. It’s an interesting idea I hadn’t thought of before to include completion date as a possible rule trigger. I’ll give that some thought and might add it to Flowsana.
Like Asana, Flowsana has no facility to do that via automation. You might be able to use Zapier to do it. It wouldn’t be able to copy ALL elements of a task, but it might be possible to get what you want in terms, not 100% sure.
@Phil_Seeman I have just tried looking at Flowasana but it does not have an option in the Rules to be able to create a copy of a tasks when it has been marked as completed in one project. Have I missed something? Any help would be appreciated.
If you mean a true copy where the new copy has no relationship at all to the original, then you’re correct, Flowsana doesn’t do that, as I mentioned in my reply to Sobru. Is that the type of copy you’re looking for, or something else?
Thanks @Phil_Seeman for the quick response. I must have misread your reply to Sobru. Sorry. Yes, I was after a copy. The objective for us is to be able to see that a task is complete at portfolio level and having it sit within different projects doesn’t allow us to monitor and report on the progression of specific tasks in context specific projects.
@Phil_Seeman to clarify the motivation for copy a tasks or in fact just creating a new tasks into a new project is so we better assess the performance of our teams.
Why doesn’t Asana grab all task information if you move it via rule from one project to another? This is frustrating when you have a project that feeds 4 or 5 others for resolution management.
You’ll need to clarify more specifically what you mean by “task information” but my guess is you have custom field values set on a task in one project and when you move that task to another project, you’re not seeing those custom field values.
If that’s what’s happening, it’s because you don’t have those custom fields set to be included on the second project. If you make sure the custom fields in question are in your organizational custom fields library, and then you add them to the second project from the library, then you’ll see values on tasks for those custom fields.
I will try that (adding them to the organization’s custom fields library). From the original project, I duplicated the project to projects X, Y and Z so all the fields are identical. I will make sure each custom field is in the org library. Thanks.
