The coolest Asana rules 😎

[Bastien_Siebman]

Let’s find some great new combinations!

[Christian_Yasfani_Ag]

I would like to have a rule or perhaps a template in which I set a due date for a certain milestone, and automatically several subtasks get it own due dates… is it possible? help will be highly appreciated

[Bastien_Siebman]

@Christian_Yasfani_Ag

I set a due date for a certain milestone, and automatically several subtasks get it own due dates… is it possible?

I don’t know any solution that would currently do that. Maybe Flowsana from @Phil_Seeman?

[Phil_Seeman]

@Christian_Yasfani_Ag

and automatically several subtasks get it own due dates

Need a bit more detail here - what due date(s) do you want these subtasks to get? The same due date as their parent milestone task, or different dates - and if different, then how are the subtasks’ due dates determined?

[Bryan_Kinch]

Is there a way to create rules for when sub-tasks are assigned? Specifically, I would like to have assigned subtasks copied to another project once assigned.

[Bastien_Siebman]

Only if the subtask is part of a project already. Otherwise Rules can’t target subtasks.

[anon6751614]

This post is great!
Will definitely steal an idea or five from this.

Contributing with our idea of using Rules.
We use a set of rules globally on all of our projects unless they are meant to be hidden (certain HR projects for example).

Goal: Collect your departments/workgroups tasks in one place.

Needed background
Each department or main process group has its own project (we call this project a dashboard), where their manager can see all of the group’s tasks and plan their day/week. You can easily help out colleagues if they’re behind and you’re done with your work since all of your team’s work is collected in one dashboard.

Our vision is to let project managers project manage, and others ease of finding their tasks and collaborate seamlessly in their department, while the manager can assure we’re focusing on their right tasks and in time. (Also “Workload” makes it possible to plan months ahead to see if anyone has too much or too little to do within your team)

Project Planning → Asana Rule’s → Department Dashboard

This Rule is set up for all dashboards (14 almost identical rules)

The dashboards themselves look a bit different depending on the workgroup.
Some find it easiest to sort by priority while others use their departments “Cornerstones”.
Just missing tags for Rules to more easily identify the area of the task, Project field can contain a few too many projects to be easily viewed.
Some ad-hoc tasks can be added directly to this project, but otherwise we want all tasks to originate from a project or initiative.

It can look something like this:

[Bastien_Siebman]

Very nice!

[Christine_Andrews]

These are great! Thank you!

Question - can you have 2 rules run together, for example:

Rule 1. When job is marked complete, move to “completed” section
Rule 2. When moved to completed section, change Progress column to “Completed.”

I tried this, but it only ran the first one. The second one would work if I manually moved the task to the completed section…

[Phil_Seeman]

@Christine_Andrews

can you have 2 rules run together

No, sorry, you can’t - Asana does not support triggering one rule based on another rule. You can add your vote for that capability here if you’d like:

Allow Rules to trigger other Rules

I posted this as a Bug here but apparently it is intended behaviour as a of right now. The situation is this: I have a master project and multiple other individual projects. I have Rules to automatically copy tasks created in an individual project to the Master project, which is a great use of Rules. However, I would also like categorization to happen to rules in the Master project, for example to mark new tasks as “Not Started” and to assign them to me. At present, a task that is added to the …

With an Asana Business-level subscription, you could accomplish what you want because you can create a custom rule that has multiple rule actions.

[Christine_Andrews]

Thank you @Phil_Seeman !

[Neil]

I love these too. I had a similar need to the Architect. I am trying to ensure I have a good Master Project List so I can take a holistic view of things. Examples include seeing what is in flight, prioritise projects, look for missing topics etc. I have seen an approach of creating Portfolio dashboard reporting using Asana to Go which comes close.

Here was the original rule
The Architect

• Goal : automatically build a master project, from various sources.
• Idea : in various projects, create a rule that automatically adds any task created to a master project.
• Why it’s cool : your master project will always be up-to-date with all its children’s tasks.

I am trying to make the idea “All Projects” not “various projects” - in other words all new projects create a task on the Master Project List. Then I would review the MPL every week. Zapier has the right triggers and actions but I cannot find a way to make the task be a reference to the original project - I can only add a new task every time there is a new project which is not helpful for a weekly review. I had look at Flowsana too but again Rules are built by project and do not apply to all Projects.

Thanks!

[Bastien_Siebman]

@Neil

Zapier has the right triggers and actions but I cannot find a way to make the task be a reference to the original project

In Zapier you can’t add task to another project, rather than create a new task?

[Neil]

I think the same challenge applies ie

1. it is not possible with Zapier to make a new task in the MPL to act as a reference to the new project
2. it is not possible with Zapier to add a new task in the new project that also homes to the MPL

[fitz2]

Another great one is the “Out of Office”. If you’re on leave, you can create a rule where if someone assigns you a task, Asana automatically comments with an Out of Office message so people know that you won’t see/be able to action a task until you’re back. Great for working with clients. And then you just turn it off when you’re back.

[Bastien_Siebman]

Great idea, I’ll update the post soon to include it.

[Vadorequest]

Great tricks! Kinda disappointed when I tried to build one and couldn’t because we’re running under Premium plan though. (glad to know Flowsana is an alternative)

[Bastien_Siebman]

I have added the Out of Office from @fitz2!

[Ufuoma_Ogaga]

This totally cool!

Does anyone have a workaround rule that will send an email to a client when they have overdue tasks?

What about “Task Created By” triggers?

We work with many accounting clients and often times they don’t have their notifications turned on nor pay attention to the Asana My tasks section and the mobile app no matter how many trainings we do.