Real time, two ways Calendar integration

English Forum Product Feedback
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Hi, just want to go on the record here and acknowledge that I will probably give up on using Asana soon without a significant improvement to the google calendar integration. In its current state it is useless to me. Updating just twice a day does not help me keep track of a busy and dynamic schedule, nor does it help me integrate the power of google calendar to support calendar invites to meetings, switching a meeting task to a google hangout, etc. etc. Real time, two way google calendar integration is available through less expensive collaborative project and task management tools such as gqueues, high task, drop task, etc. I currently end up having to manage two different task list platforms and I just can’t afford the time to do that anymore.

I am puzzled why the google calendar implementation is so klunky with Asana. My inquiries on this subject during the past year have indicated that there are no plans to improve the situation either. I have been holding out for the integration to be transferred from the now extinct Sunrise Calendar to the Outlook App but I am losing my patience there too. I suppose there must be a good reason this is not simply built into the core of Asana but it is probably coming at the cost of this user.

I would love to hear otherwise of course.

image Update from @Marie (04/11)

Hi all,

Thank you so much for all your feedback on this topic and for your patience. We’re aware this feature request is very popular among Forum Members and we’re regularly reconsidering it when planning our Roadmap. As explained in How we’re listening to your product feedback, we balance each of our decision on several criteria (resources, product development and Voice of Customer to name a few); as a result, some popular forum requests are not always prioritized as quickly as users would like to. Our Platform team is currently building exciting integrations that we believe will help you streamline your workflow (I’m hoping to have some great news to share soon!); unfortunately, this also means we were not able to prioritize a V2 of our Calendar integration allowing you to sync events both ways.

With that said, Asana is built on an open platform so when there is additional functionality that will help improve your workflow, developers can build apps to do just that. Here are some apps to check out that might help solve the issues you are facing:

https://office.reddiapps.com/processes/asana/googlecalendar.aspx

Again, thank you so much for using this Forum as I primary feedback channel, while I don’t comment every day on this thread, rest ensured that I’m reading and reporting on every new post published here.

@Marie

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Hi @bob_christensen - it’s nice to see your enthusiasm for the Google Calendar - Asana integration!

The frequency of your Asana project resyncing to your external calendar is on Google’s end. The same goes for an Outlook sync. We have submitted a feature request that would allow the end user to manually resync the calendar, but we haven’t received an update as to when they plan on developing this functionality just yet. If you’d like Google to implement this functionality sooner rather than later, I encourage you to reach out to Google support to let them know. :slight_smile:

We do hope that you’ll stick with Asana in the meantime! We would be happy to help you establish workarounds to make your calendar process easier.

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Hi Alexis, thanks very much for the response.

I am curious about how other task management platforms manage to achieve
real-time and two-way communication between google calendar and their
platforms but Asana cannot?

My ears are open to workarounds as well. I have tried Zapier, for example.
This works OK but only in one direction and only for task creation, not
updating.

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I’m happy to help. I’d encourage you to reach out to Google to request that real time communication you’re looking for. You could also check out the Google calendar API to get creative. :slight_smile:

As you mention, Zapier is helpful for connecting Asana to Google calendar. Other integration options you might look into are Tray.io and IFTTT. The integrations category here in the Community would be a good place to explore more.

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I would like to find a way around this too - but in the meantime are there any calendar options (other than google and apple) that Asana syncs with more often?

I am trying to solve an appointment syncing conundrum between Acuity and Asana. I solved the add task to Asana using Zapier, but need to update the calendar in google that is associated with the project but it just doesn’t work quickly enough. was hoping someone might know an alternative calendar that updates more frequently.

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@Ruth_Newnham have you taken a look at our calendar integrations page in the Asana Guide? Sync Asana + Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple | Product guide • Asana Product Guide

Regarding the frequency of updates, that is something up to our integration partner - Google in this case. I’d suggest that you reach out to their support team directly to let them know you’re interested in more frequent updates. Otherwise, I think you’re on the right track with Zapier. If you’re looking for something else, some other tools you might try are Unito, Tray.io, and IFTTT.

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Hey Bob,

I floated this by the G-suite admin that I sometimes use for issues with our account. Not 100% thrilled with the answer, but thought I would post it here. Perpahs other folks use G-suite and we can try to get to the bottom of this. It’s frustrating for the lag, especially when we depend so much on our calendars.

Here is her response:

_"I was doing some research to advise as best as I can, but keep in mind that this is a third party service and we won’t be able to directly troubleshoot. I’m sorry to hear that there’s been a compatibility problem with that software, but it really depends on the connection between the software and our product, internet speed, network and such. If there’s any connection issue, we can definitely do our best to see what can be done on our end. _

_Rich, I encourage you to let our Product Engineers now about the time it takes to sync Google Calendars with other apps, so that you can submit a request for speed optimization. You can visit our Feature Ideas page at Google Cloud Connect, then you can either search for a matching post or post your own idea. More details on this page can be found in this Help Center article Submit ideas for Google Workspace - Google Workspace Admin Help. _

I’ve marked your case as closed, but if you’re still experiencing difficulties or have further questions or concerns about this matter, simply reply to this message within the next 30 days and the case will reopen. If you’d prefer to discuss this matter over the phone, please include a time you’d like to be called and the best phone number to reach you on. I wish you a wonderful week!"

Thanks,

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Hi Alexis – Yes, of course I had a look at this before I asked the question. The page doesn’t help address the issue of frequency with Google – I had better luck with frequency with iCloud calendar but the problem there is the iCloud calendar won’t release info to my acuity account more than 6 months out – so that one doesn’t work for me either – I am trying to sort things with Zapier – but was hoping some clever person out there might already know a solution. If anyone has any brilliant ideas I’ll give them a go otherwise I’ll pug on trying to solve the problem :blush:

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Here is a follow up response from Google:

Good morning,

It seems like this issue is with Asana, as you have mentioned that other task management tools do allow better integration. This must mean that Google does support this. I would suggest following up with Asana to see why their product only syncs twice per day.

As for Google Apps Sync, this is an immediate sync. Any time your calendar is changed, those changes are pushed to Google as long as you are online. This is the same for any email that is created, and sent, as well as emails that are received. If you are experiencing an issue where it is not working as intended, you may need to open a Google ticket.

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Hmm as they suggest you may need to open a Google ticket. Perhaps my colleague, @Terri_Burden will be able to add some context about how the integration and and sync timing work.

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As I have mentioned before, there are a number of smaller task management
services that do provide real time updates and two way syncing between
google calendar and their project and task management software. This has me
a bit dubious that it is a google issue. Try Gqueues, Droptask or Hitask,
for example. Alexis, wouldn’t it be more supportive if someone at Asana
were to research this issue and get back with a road map to improve the
situation rather than asking users to open ad hoc tickets with Google?

b

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Hi Alexis,

Do any of the folks on your end use google cal? Perhaps they can also look into this? It seems like we can be sent from google to Asana and vice versa and it can be a time suck.

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Hi Rich and Bob. Due to the quantity of product requests we receive, we are not able to guarantee when an issue like this will be investigated or put on our roadmap. It is my understanding that the issue is related to our integration partner, as indicated in my initial post. However, I’m happy to help you investigate this further. I’ve escalated the issue to my colleagues on support and I’ll see what we can do to provide you with more information.

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Thanks for escalating. Look forward to learning more details.

b

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Thanks for looping me in, Alexis! :slight_smile:

Hi there, @bob_christensen and @Rich_Lamendola. I hope this message finds you well.

Sorry for the trouble here! I had a chance to review this thread and I can totally understand where you’re coming from. While I don’t have the answers you’re seeking, I’ve escalated the issue to our Development Team.

We may contact you again if we need any more context as we investigate. Either way, we’ll reach out once we have an update.

We appreciate your patience and encourage you to let us know about any changes in behavior you might see, or if you have any questions in the meantime.

Talk soon!

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Thanks very much Terri. Please do contact me if you have any questions about the way we would like to see it work.

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Thanks so much, @Terri_Burden! Most appreciated and happy to help in any way.

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Thanks so much for your patience @bob_christensen and @Rich_Lamendola!

I can’t say that I have the best news but nevertheless, I have an update. :slight_smile:

I brought your concern to our engineers and the solution is going to require more work on both Asana and Google’s end.

To be completely honest with you, we don’t have any changes planned in the near term but this is on our radar. They may use your suggestion to help inform future improvements to the integration.

Let’s hope for the best? If we have any updates about the status of this project moving forward, we’ll update the community.

Thanks again for your contribution to the community. We here ya and we value your input! :hearts:

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Real sorry to hear that Terri. So close to useful for me but can’t make it
work without this feature.

Thanks again for working this up the chain.

b

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Does anyone know when the sync runs? Is it set to specific times or does it vary depending on project?

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