Import With Dynamic Due Dates

As I mentioned before, it is possible to use Excel to create the missing feature of dynamic due dates for new projects. It can be done with simple math or better yet a decision to only include workdays. The =workday command is flexible in many ways and also can have a lookup holiday schedule table that you could put on another tab. Attached is an example with the logic to use the command or not. Everything feeds from the Project Start Date to the Task Start Date. If one does not have Start Dates then simply change the formula to work on Due Dates. Remember to keep both as a regular spreadsheet and CSV file for repeated use. The blue areas are your critical date inputs. Hope this helps.

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Nice! :champagne:

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This is really interesting, thanks. Surprised this has not gotten more attention. I don’t know why Asana does not include this feature, but this is a nice workaround.

If I am understanding correctly, instead of using a Project Template, we’d have the Template “offline” in Excel, set up the dates as we want them, and then import it?

That is correct.If you want me to send you the spreadsheet, just PM me.

Thanks

Jim

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is that template still available @James_Carl ? I would be more than interested.

Has Asana come up with a native way to import relative days form a CSV into a project?

My use case is that I want to set up a template by importing a csv into a project then saving it as a Template.

We have many project “types” and want a template per type. The templates will have many tasks so doing this manually in the template will be undesirable.

If you import a CSV with actual dates, and then turn the project into a template, Asana will basically convert dates into relative dates. Makes sense?

Thank you, Bastien, but I am still having trouble. Probably just newby flubs.

In my csv, I have a column “Due Date” (and tried “Due date” as well). This gets imported (into a project) as "Due Date (imported) but the actual Due Date column is not populated.

When I turn that project into a template, the same column data is saved.

And creating a project from that template, same thing.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any help you can suggest!

Making progress - I was formatting the due dates as date-time, now I am formatting the due dates as mm/dd/yy and it is importing into the project correctly from csv. Then I can make a template and it does have the relative dates.

Then when I create a project from the template, it turns those relative dates into hard dates assuming the project starts on “Today” (the day of creating the project.

Thanks so much for your help, and hope my experience helps the next person!

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This is all working now but one more question.

When I use my template to create a project, all of the relative dates are from “today” (the day I create the project from the template.)

Is there a way for me to specify a different start data? Assume I create the project on 8/1/2022 but I know it won’t actually start for a month so want the start date to be 9/1/2022.

Thanks in advance!

In the template, you should be able to click on the different date fields, and specify a “+X” value as well as a strategy (either start date or end date). Does this help? Can you share a screenshot of your template please + a screenshot of the popup when clicking on a date field?

I have tried this several times but the due date isn’t importing. Any tips?

Can you share the file you are using? Did you check the “Make changes” to look at the mapping?

I did. The Due Date part is grayed out and says it needs to be in date format but I’ve adjusted that several times and I have the same issue.

That’s definitely your problem. Are you using YYYY-MM-DD? Are you sure 100% of the tasks have the right format or an empty cell? Feel free to share the file in private so I can test myself.

@Jessica_Ramirez,

When I run into things like this, I try to import a CSV with a single row in it to simplify the process. Perhaps that could help you along the way here.

Thanks,

Larry

I looked at your file and this is a typical error: one line has a faulty date. If you click on “Make changes”, and try to select “Due date” is says exactly what’s wrong: row 238 says “Ongoing” instead of a date.

Thank you so much! This information was so helpful!