We are using Asana to track tasks involved in manufacturing process. Right now the person in charge of each task, for example laser engraving, must look up the project in Asana and manually mark the task complete. Since tasks are completed in batches, what we’d like is to be able to scan the project order number barcode and have a script look up the project, find the task and mark it complete. What we’re imagining is a little applet that prompts the user first for what production task they have completed and then allows them to just scan each project barcode, the applet would mark the task as complete and await the next scan. When they’re done have them click a button which would return them to them to the applet’s initial menu.
How would an automated process know which task to find and mark complete? As I understand it from your description, the bar code only identifies the project?
Thank-you for your reply. Since each project has the same production steps all of the same name, it would lookup the project from the barcode and then (presumably) find the task by searching for a task with the same name/text based upon the user’s selection of task name from the drop down on the home page.
Are you a developer and just looking for some guidance on the Asana aspect of this, or you’re not one and you’re looking for a developer to implement it for you?
Thank you for your reply. The plan is to print the job numbers in code39 onto mailing labels and stick those on the job bags. Then use a scanner which will send the scanned code to the pc as if it was entered via the keyboard.
So ideally someone scans a code, and on a screen is displayed Asana with the tasks matching the bar code and they complete the relevant task(s)? I am sure why you want to ask for a task name when they can look at Asana directly.
Let’s say there are 10 steps in a manufacturing process and each step is completed by a different person and each step is batched so they have 50 orders in front of them, for example. Each order is a separate project in Asana but each project has the same ten steps. You’re the person in charge of step 6 and you complete that step for all fifty projects and you need to mark them as complete in Asana. Looking up each one and marking it complete is too time consuming. So you load up the applet and you tell it what step you want to mark complete from a drop down list of steps. Then in the next field you have an open field into which the project number is typed. Now, you could type in each project number manually and the app will lookup the project and mark Step 6 complete and await the next project number. Or, you could just pass each barcoded in front of a scanner which will ‘type’ in the project number and add a carriage return. In this way you could mark the step 6 for each project as complete as fast as you can scan them.
It does make a lot of sense. You want to be able to say “I am responsible for task 6, let’s scan some code” and then each time you scan a task is found and completed.
Do you image a solution in Asana itself or it could be an external webpage or maybe you already have an interface to integrate this into?
I imagine the quickest and easiest solution would be an external app hosted elsewhere that uses the Asana api. We already have one written in python that allows our clients to check their project status.
This, however, would be for internal use only and we’d probably just use a password protected subdirectory to secure it or google oauth depending upon cost.
No UI conventions for this. Just a drop down and a text box.
Don’t have an it team. I do have the fellow who wrote our previous Asana api app. But that was done years ago and I wanted to know what was possible these days. For example, accomplishing this within Asana itself which I hadn’t even considered as a possibility.
You won’t be able to do something 100% automatic in Asana. You could pre-create searches in which you update the code you search for, but you would be missing the “auto” part of the process. I can help as a consultant on the Asana part, helping another developer doing the heavy lifting, if you are able to find one on a platform like Upwork…
