Now rolling out: Gmail + Asana improvements to streamline workflows and connect planning with execution

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Hi Asana Community! :wave:

I’m Vicky Phan from Asana’s Product Marketing team, and I’m excited to share that we’ve begun rolling out new improvements to our Asana for Gmail integration!

This enhancement to our existing Asana for Gmail integration is part of a series of improvements that we are planning for the coming year. WIth this update, you can choose to sync an email thread to a newly created task, right from within Gmail.

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Once the sync option is selected, future email replies will be updated into the connected task as rich previews, for seamless reference and collaboration.

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Using this integration, you can easily and seamlessly turn emails into actionable, trackable tasks in Asana–all without ever leaving your Gmail inbox.

For example, using Gmail + Asana together, you can:

  • Create a work request for another partner team, with all the email context captured in a task so they can appropriately triage, prioritize, and execute on work

  • Capture customer-facing conversations around product requests or troubleshooting, and share the details with internal teams as a reference

How do I get started?

To access this functionality, install this add-on from the Gmail Add-On Marketplace. The integration works with the Gmail app on both Android and iOS. (Note: This integration also includes other Google Workspace functionality, such as the ability to tag Asana tasks in your Google Docs).

If you are the administrator for your domain, you can install the add-on for your entire organization. (Please note, it can take up to 7 days for the add-on to show up with Admin Install.)

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  1. Install the Asana add-on from the Gmail Add-on Marketplace.
  2. Open an email in Gmail and click the Asana logo in the side panel.
  3. Sign in using your Asana account details.
  4. After logging in, you will see the option to create a new task within your email.
  5. When creating the new task, select the check-box for Sync future replies to this task.

I’m an admin - can I enable this for my team at scale?

If you are the administrator for your Asana domain, there is also an option for you to install the add-on for your entire organization, instead of having end users install the app individually through the Google Workspace / Gmail flow shown above. (Note: When doing an Admin Install, it may take up to 7 days for the add-on to appear.)

In order for the add-on to be installed, the Gmail app would also need to be allowed from the Asana side via App Management. To make any adjustments to this, visit App Management in the Admin Console.

Where to learn more

For more in-depth details about the set-up and usage of this integration, visit the Asana Guide.

This integration is available on all Asana plans.

As always, we are excited to hear your thoughts and feedback! What are some ways this integration will help your teams streamline processes, create visibility and alignment, and partner even better together?

Comment below and let us know how we can help you continue to drive teamwork and collaboration at your organization. Thanks!

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Hi @Vicky_Phan Thanks for the update - this sounds very useful (if you’re using Gmail at least!). Can you share if there are any similar plans for the Outlook + Asana integration?

thanks!
Tony

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Awesome! This was a much-needed update. I was able to log in and connect the two systems easily.

@Vicky_Phan Are there any plans to add the ability to respond to the email thread via Asana task comments?

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When you do not check te sync option, the email is no longer attached to the task. (As it was before). The sync option syncs all mails e.g. mails we get from scan2mail. Which is not what we want. As far as I am concerned this update was a downgrade.

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My plugin is no longer working at all. It asks me to log back in, and every time I try to do that i get this error:

Error: Error retrieving token: invalid_grant, The code provided has been previously deactivated., Build an app with Asana (line 606, file “Service”)

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I like the idea of this, but when creating a task from an email (that had multiple back and forths prior to be creating the task) it seems that the comment “Synced an email from _____” is added to the task for every previous email exchange. This means that I am getting notification emails for all of these “syncs” despite the emails not being new.

This is EXTREMELY annoying - please resolve this!!

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Hi all and thanks for all the feedback you shared so far. I’ve compiled it in a task which I have escalated to the team working on this update. I’ll circle back here once I have an update on any of these points.

@Lauren_Spokane, if you’re still running into this issue, I would suggest creating a new thread in the Tips and Tricks so we can help you with your specific issue!

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Hi @Vicky_Phan,

Is there a way to leverage Asana fields as variables within an email template in the Gmail integration? If not, are there any plans for this?

Best,
Rebecca

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Hello @Rebecca_Golden, that’s not possible at the moment, but a really good idea, and I will make sure to share with our team :slight_smile:

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This would be a game changer for sure!

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Hello @Herve_Buisset , thank you for your feedback!

We recently added the feature to add the email body to the task description if you don’t turn on “Sync future replies”. Please let us know if this addresses your concern. Thanks!

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Good idea indeed, @Rebecca_Golden!

Clarifying, are you asking for the ability to create this email template in Asana and when something happens in Asana, it would trigger the automatic sending of the email using this template?

It would also be very helpful to understand which workflows this feature would be useful for to help us prioritize internally.

Appreciate your feedback!

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@Andrea_Lackie1 Thanks for the feedback!

I can see how this can be annoying; by default, if you are adding an email with historical conversations to an Asana task, we add the most recent 5 email messages to the task so there is additional email context.

Could you elaborate on what is the ideal # recent emails you’d like to see? We’d love to better understand the problem to help with prioritization. Thanks!

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Yes, that is exactly what I would like. If you need to meet to discuss further I am open to doing this. I have a workflow that I built that I would use it for that I can show you.
Currently, the template is being populated in the description of a subtask and the assign has to copy and paste it into Gmail from there.

Best,

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It does! Only it would be nice if the date on which the mail was sent would be included.
We need it in the task for traceability reasons. And is possible to convert a mail to a task eg one day later, we can not use the task creation date.

Thanks for the update by the way!! :smiley:

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I’ve really enjoyed the ability to sync Gmail messages with Asana tasks created FROM Gmail. However, as Asana as my main inbox, most of my work is created IN Asana, then some conversations regarding that work take place in Gmail. Not being able to sync those post-creation Gmail conversations really gums up my workflow and risks info being missed.

Is there any way to sync Gmail conversations with Asana tasks that ALREADY exist?

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There is not currently a way to do that. You can add your vote for that capability here:

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