The Power 💪 of @mention & Advanced Reports combined

[LEGGO]

Did you know that you can perform a search for @mention links?

Have you ever had the need to track specific phrases when entered within the description or comment fields?

A prime example might be when you are using Asana to serve as a CRM and you want to know when specific stakeholders are “mentioned” throughout the details of tasks within projects. You could create an Advanced Search that “contains the words” (as shown below - in this case we are looking for tasks that mention our favorite stakeholder, Bastien the Great) …

… however, this might not provide the precise results you are looking for. Instead, let’s look at how we might use a task called Bastien the Great which lives within a project that lists out all your stakeholders, as seen below:

Since Bastien the Great is a task within a project, you can now @mention it whenever you provide updates throughout Asana that involve this stakeholder. Being that stakeholders aren’t a part of your Organization and it might not always be appropriate that they serve as a Guest within your projects, this approach allows you to still reference them when they aren’t an available Collaborator. Here is an example where I @mention Bastien the Great.

If I click on this @mention it takes me back to the original Bastien the Great task. This task has a task link of: “Log in - Asana”. For those that aren’t aware, the “1181732105212139” portion is the Project in which the task is being viewed from. The “1199384864963422” is the task .

If I don’t reference the Project in the web link (like this: “Log in - Asana”) it will redirect to the project in which the task originated from (assuming the task is multi-homed to several projects).

Anyhow, if I perform a simple search for the task , this will give me a list of ALL the places in which the @mention for Bastien the Great is referenced within a task description or comment.

Now, I can choose to save this report so I have a dynamic reference to this specific @mention OR I can choose to copy the search URL (as shown below) and paste it into a dedicated Custom Field called “@mention Links” which was created within the stakeholder project that the Bastien the Great task belongs to.

Below is a screenshot of the Custom Field where the @mention link can be stored so I am always one-click away from seeing where this reference is used throughout Asana.

Hopefully you found this to be a creative use-case for the powerful @mention feature. Specially, those that could benefit from this type of setup when using Asana as a CRM. I’m interested to learn from you! Share your thoughts on the following question:

What other ways could searching for @mention links help you better manage your data in Asana???

[Marie]

@LEGGO thank you so much for sharing this tip. I never thought of it, but what a creative way to leverage @mentions and advanced reports

[Bastien_Siebman]

@LEGGO

Being

Great trick! And awesome example it is almost like I have a Viking name or something

[Julien_RENAUD]

Very nice example @LEGGO

@Bastien_Siebman, according to the example, I’m the “Biggest Influencer of Bastien the Great”, it’s not a bad status I guess

Thank you @LEGGO for this great and funny post

[Pachia_Moua]

@LEGGO, Is there a way to do this for an organization member and filter by @mentions in the comments/description section only? There are some scenarios where I’ve been @mentioned by someone else and I’d like to go back to view the exact @mention in the comments/description section without having to search around for it.

It seems, at the moment, that I can search for @Pachia Moua in our organization but the advanced search results will show tasks that I have provided a comment for or I’m a collaborator of and that is not what I’m looking for. Thank you!

[Jason_Bedford]

I’m toying with the “Task is overdue” rule. When I create the rule in my tasks, I can @mention my name. The @mention triggers a traditional e-mail alerting me to a task that has gone past due.

If I create the rule in a project with multiple members, is there a way to @mention the assignee of the task so that it adds a note, but also triggers an e-mail to their e-mail?

Thanks!

[Mike_Tammaro]

This is a great use case!

[Mike_Tammaro]

Hi @Jason_Bedford ,

You can @mention your name in a comment for the first action and then add another action such as “Add collaborators” with whatever teammates you want to be added.

This way they have visibility into the task and (as long as their email notifications are on) are able to see updates to that task via email.

[Jason_Bedford]

@Mike_Tammaro

You can @mention your name in a comment for the first action and then add another action such as “Add collaborators” with whatever teammates you want to be added.

Hi @Mike_Tammaro, I want to create a generic rule, that looks to the task owner and notifies them, not me as the project lead. Trying to build some automation to keep the tasks updated in larger projects.

Is there a generic variable for the assignee - so I can create an @assignee, and that causes Asana to look to who the task is assigned to, substitute their name into the @assignee - so that person is notified when their task goes overdue?

Thanks!

[Mike_Tammaro]

Hi @Jason_Bedford,

I believe at this time there’s not variable specifically for that function. The only workaround is to @assignee in a comment, and that comment is the action in your rule.

Although this is a great thought and could be an interesting add-in in the future!

[Jason_Bedford]

@Mike_Tammaro

I believe at this time there’s not variable specifically for that function. The only workaround is to @assignee in a comment, and that comment is the action in your rule.

Thanks @Mike_Tammaro - thanks for the suggestion. I don’t want to copy everyone on the project for delinquent tasks. I don’t want to punish the group with extra notifications, for people that let a task go past due. It would be great if Asana could make this a variable… that would be a great addition to a great tool!

[anon164026]

Awesome workaround here.

One limitation I find is mostly the reporting capabilities. For example, each @mention link would pull up all tasks where a stakeholder was mentioned, but what if I want to count how many mentions each stakeholder had in a chart?

For example, having a pie chart that groups stakeholder by # of mentions.

To make this work, it would seem that the Asana reporting capabilities would need to include the ability to count #mentions .

Has there been a workaround for this?