I’m starting to think this is impossible based on my self-led Asana training so far, but couldn’t find a direct answer to this question, so here goes: I want to be able to create rules based on roles, not individual people. Here are two examples:
“If Task1 is moved from the writing section to the editing section, notify the person who is listed as the editor for Task1.” (Not “If Task1 is moved from the writing section to the editing section, notify Meg.”)
“If Task2’s due date passes, notify person who is assigned to Task2.” (Not “If Task2’s due date passes, notify James.”)
I’m sorry if I missed this somewhere. But if it isn’t possible, can I just say that the absence of such functionality is a little mind-boggling? For those of us who need to create boards for ongoing processes (which Asana claims to support), this seems like a basic necessity.
Your self-training didn’t lead you astray; I’m afraid that’s not directly available in Asana. A poor substitute (but maybe of possible value) would be to ensure all the possible parties are Collaborators on the task, and writing a rule (assumes Business or Enterprise plan). The trigger in each case is easily supported (as you probably know) but you could make the action be to add a comment that doesn’t reference the specific person, but due to the Collaborators list, you know all will receive the notification; but then they’d have to check manually if it’s for them or not and do the assignment (your example 1) or care about the notification (your example 2).
But flowsana.net (/cc @Phil_Seeman) is a great third-party tool that may help with one or both of your needs.
As @lpb mentions, our Flowsana integration can help you here. For your first case, you can create a Flowsana rule action to notify an email address in a custom field:
Thank you, Phil and Larry! To be honest, we’ll probably just limp along with manual notification processes until our paid Asana membership runs out and seek out another solution, rather than add another product onto a program we’re already paying a premium for just to get the simple automation we need. There’s got to be a more scalable project management tool for editorial workflows out there. Appreciate your time and straightforwardness!
