How to sync a task in different projects automatically

[Phil_Seeman]

Hey @lpb,

Actually I believe using Asana rules won’t work for this because they don’t fire as the result of automation-made changes; it’s discussed here:

Change column of task from another project

Thanks for the reply Ivan. Yep tried all of this - and what’s being asked for above doesn’t work. And for what it’s worth - Asana confirmed that this does not work. Their reasoning: “*…the Action/result of one Rule can’t serve as the Trigger of another Rule – meaning that moving a multihomed Task to “Section: In Progress” in Project A will trigger that Task’s Custom Field to flip to “Field: In Progress”. However, that flip to “Field: In Progress” will not trigger that Task to move to “Secti…

However, Flowsana’s rules don’t have this limitation, so I know this can be done using Flowsana rules.

@David_Löfgren, because sections are specific to projects and are not shared between projects, you can’t accomplish this directly.

So, if you want to use my Flowsana integration to accomplish it, what you can do is use a custom field (you can also use a tag) to in essence link the two projects together, and then create rules in each project.

I.e. in Project A you create a rule like "If task gets moved to Section ‘In Progress’, set the value of custom field ‘Status’ to ‘In Progress’. Then in Project B, you create a rule like "If value of custom field ‘Status’ gets changed to ‘In Progress’, move the task to the ‘In Progress’ section.

Note that you have to make sure the custom field is a global one; that is, it lives in your organizational custom field library.

I should also note that you can add your vote for Asana to have this “sync columns between projects” capability here:

Link board column and section names to user selected field or custom field

This would allow users to set (and change as required) standard workflows across multiple projects as they see fit without the need to use multiple unnecessary rules every time a new project is created. In my opinion this is how sections / board columns should have been implemented in the first place. The flexibility and ease of use would have been amazing.