Need to quickly create a long list of options for your single-select or multi-select fields? Or just looking for some inspiration for some more dropdown field options?
Asana Intelligence is coming soon to Custom fields, available for Premium, Business and Enterprise tier, at no additional cost. Harnessing the power of AI’s LLMs (Large Language Models), this new feature will be available upon creating a new single-select or multi-select field!
Using the feature
From the Customize menu, select ‘Add custom field’ and make sure the ‘Field type’ to ‘Single-select’ or ‘Multi-select’. Or click on the + icon on the far right of your columns in your list view.
In the ‘Add field’ model, within the ‘Create new’ tab you will now see a ‘Recommend field options with Asana Intelligence’ banner. The feature works with whatever you input into the ‘Field title’ as well as in combination with the ‘Description’ field, so make sure to click on the ‘+ Add description’ button to enable this too. So let’s give it a spin!
Example 1
So how about creating the stages of a typical workflow, such as for tracking potential leads?
For the ‘Field title’ we can input what we would usually set for it, eg. ‘Lead stage’ and then we can hit the purple ‘Recommend’ button…
The bot will think and then deliver the results, as per below…
If we are happy with these results, we can click Accept.
Then, we could edit the colours, add emojis, resort options or add further options to our dropdown.
But why not let the AI do that for us? 
So, let’s try using further prompts in the ‘Description’ to fine tune our results, and hit the ‘Retry’ button. Let’s see…
Hmm… much better, right? And if you don’t like some emojis, you can always change them once you hit accept, as well as add further options, remove them or change the sort.
OK, so I hear you say “I could create that field myself, what’s the big deal?”
So let’s try something more interesting…
Example 2
How about a dropdown field with all the Weeks of the year, such as Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 etc. that’s 52 options that no one has really time for, right? This custom field could be added to each task of your project, to provide you with that insight, as well as a surprise at the end… stay tuned. 
So let’s ask the AI to create this field for us. Here goes…
Hmm… so the results were only 5 options, with random colours. Not what we want.
So let’s try tweaking the prompt by adding more instructions in the ‘Description’ field.
Ah much better! Ready in a few seconds 
…oh, but I hear someone say “I want them abbreviated to display as Wk instead of Week”
OΚ then, let’s tweak that ‘Description’ field again to mention ‘abbreviated as Wk’
Not bad, right?
Auto-fill field values
So what do you do with this custom field now? Say you have hundreds of tasks in your project and you need to populate them with this field. What a pain, right?
Well, you will be able to let the AI fill these out for you, in our case, based on the task’s due date! The AI can figure out which week of the year your task is due, and thus populate the relevant option from our newly created dropdown. 
Select all your tasks, click on a blank field value and then scroll down to the end of the drop down options and select ‘Auto-fill field value’ as per below.
and let’s see what happens…
Full marks!! 
To make sure you get these results, as expected, you may have to Edit the ‘Description’ of your field as per below. This seems to help the AI’s Autofill feature to understand what it is supposed to do!
The more you input into your project, fields and overall structure, the better the results that Asana AI will deliver - remember that!
Try, experiment & learn how to use the ‘Field title’ and ‘Description’ prompts
Regarding the first example above, you can try it out for your field of work to see what the AI comes up with, such as ‘Real estate stage’, ‘Engineering stage’, ‘Bug status’. Did the AI get it right? Did it miss anything or include an option you hadn’t thought of? Experiment with the Field title and the Description fields - these are essentially the AI’s prompt, similar to the prompt box of Chat GPT.
In relation to my 2nd example above, you could also try various lists using the following in the prompt for Field title and Description, such as for US States. Note the nuances in the results based on the Description field.
| Field title | Description | Result |
|---|---|---|
| US State | (blank) | All 50 US States, listed alphabetically, no colors |
| US State | abbreviated | As per above, but abbreviated as two letters (AL, AK, AZ, AR etc.) |
| US State | abbreviated, with emojis | As per above, but with emojis appended on the end, colours of option based on emoji’s colour |
| US State | abbreviated, with emojis, no colour | As per above, but without any colours for the options (default grey) |
You could also take it a step further with these custom fields, try them out once the feature is released!
| Field title | Description |
|---|---|
| Month | abbreviated, no colour, with emojis |
| Last updated | 52 Fridays of 2024, colours cycle through |
| Last updated | 52 Fridays of 2024, colours cycle through, abbreviated as MM/DD |
You can help make it better by providing feedback 
Note that the feature is still in development so you may experience some unexpected results. I feel that these will improve over time and we can all help teach the AI and make it better by providing our feedback, not just when we are unsatisfied with a result, but also when we are ecstatic about it, especially when it has saved us so much time! So make sure to use the feedback thumbs up/down buttons above your results. Learn more in this article: Sharing feedback on AI features.
What I wish the feature would do (maybe some day?)
Unfortunately, the feature will not make suggestions to use fields that are already in your library instead of creating new ones for you, which may be of similar nature. For example, if you prompt for a ‘Priority’ field, it will not inform you that you can use one of the (probably numerous) existing Priority fields that are already in your field library.
So until this may be implemented, make sure to always select ‘Choose from library’ first, before creating any new fields - who knows, someone on your team may already have created it, so you could also reuse it - but beware, any changes you make to the options will reflect in their projects as well as everywhere else that field is being used (which although sounds dangerous, is actually a good thing, driving consistency and best practices!).
Q&A:
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Is it possible to get different custom field options if the suggested options don’t work for my project?: Yes, you will need to refine your Field title or Description field before you click on ‘Retry’ to get different suggestions. Clicking ‘Retry’ over and over seems to provide exactly the same results - but this may change in a future update.
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Can I edit the suggested options?: Yes, once you accept the suggested options, you can edit them as normal, rearrange them, change their colours, emojis etc and then save. You can always come back to Edit them later, as normal.
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What field type does this feature support?: The suggestion custom fields feature supports single-select and multi-select custom fields.
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Can I add suggested options to existing fields? No, the feature only appears in the ‘Create new’ tab upon creation - it is not available in the ‘Edit field’ modal.
PS: If anyone is looking for any custom fields in particular, you can always check out my 🎉 Free Custom Field Templates!
See all of my top tips & tricks on my website.
