What is this "Flowsana" App thing, and these "Flowsana" rule actions?

You may have seen this in your Asana recently:

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or this in your Asana rule builder:

Wondering what those are all about? See here for the answer:

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I’m so glad about this!
What are the limitations? like does Variable Substitution still work?

You bet!

There are no limitations I can think of - just think of it as another interface for creating the rule action. After that, Asana is passing everything through to Flowsana so it works the same as if you created that action via the Flowsana portal.

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Thats fantastic news!

It always amazes me when Asana puts their efforts and their developers’ time into adding another paid automation application instead of actually developing those basic rules in Asana.

Have nothing against Flowsana - seems like you have decent automation

Is there a way to disconnect from Flowsana once connected? Thanks.

Hi @M_OC_2022,

Go to your My Profile page in Asana, then to the Apps tab. You should see Flowsana listed; click “Deauthorize”.

Just to be clear, Flowsana is developed by me completely independently of Asana; no Asana developer time goes into Flowsana at all.

I am not finding a way to access Flowsana through the App in Asana, I’m assuming it’s because we have Premium and don’t have Rule capabilities. Is that right, or am I missing it?

Hi @Keiko_Childs,

Correct! The main way to access Flowsana is via its own web portal (https://flowsana.net) but for those who have Asana Business or Enterprise subscriptions, a subset of Flowsana’s rule actions is available integrated into the the Asana rule builder.

Thank you for answering all my newbie questions! :slight_smile:

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Phil, I love the app access, but I find I still have to go out to Flowsana and do lengthy updates to the fields, projects and custom tasks, to get my rules to work :frowning: am I doing something wrong?

Remembering to update Flowsana every time we update a custom field is surely proving difficult.

I hear you, @Rachel_Botts! We update everything we possibly can where Asana’s programming interface provides the way for an integration to receive automatic updates on changes to elements. Unfortunately there are some elements - most notably custom fields, tags, and project templates - where Asana doesn’t provide a way for us to know when those change. Hence the refreshes.

A few other notes:

  • For custom fields, it’s actually an Asana bug; they are supposed to send change notifications for those, so I’ll bring that up with them when I next talk with them (which is shortly).
  • For project templates, they will be providing change notifications for those in time; they couldn’t get it done for their initial release of the new Project Templates 2.0 but it is planned. I will push them on that as well on my next call with them.
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Off topic, but being able to name our rules in Flowsana would also be life changing. When making multistep processes that are broken out into individual rules, it would be amazing to name them according to my processes and be able to sort by my naming convention example:

NSLP Step 1.1 - Send for AM approval - no data changes
NSLP Step 1.2 - Send for AM approval - changes requested
NSLP Step 2.1 - Move to “Ready” in Prep Project

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Got it, @Rachel_Botts! The ability to name a Flowsana rule is definitely on the features-to-add list; I’ll note your support for it.

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Just tried flowsana and made my first few set of rules. However it did not affect myproject, am I missing something? Do I need to sign up under Business plan to get flowsana fully working?

Hi @Jaro_Necesito,

Flowsana is still setting up your account and data. Please wait for an email that setup is completed, and then create your rules. Thanks!

Flowsana is not an authorized app in my organization. Is there any way I can create custom fields without connecting to Flowsana?

Hi @HARBANI_GILL,

While Flowsana utilizes custom fields, it’s not involved in the creation of them - you do that in Asana. See How to Create and Use Custom Fields in Asana | Product Guide • Asana Product Guide