🔒 Why and how to back-up Asana ?

[Bastien_Siebman]

Asana is definitely a reliable and highly available work management solution. But you might wonder: should I back up my Asana data and how? Just to be clear: Asana has its own back up system and data is replicated in different data centers!

Why is backup important?

• Unexpected downtime: Asana, like any other tool, might be down for a few minutes or hours. Having a backup means critical data is always at your fingertips. History shows us that Asana has an uptime close to 99.9%.

• Data integrity: Mistakes happen – a teammate or guest might accidentally delete or corrupt data. There are native ways to recover it in most cases!

• Compliance needs: Backups are sometimes a legal or client requirement for certifications, especially in regulated industries.

It is important to understand Asana’s status and deletion policy

Asana allows you to recover tasks, projects, portfolios… within 30 days through the app or support, but restoring data to a prior version isn’t possible. The exact list of supported objects isn’t communicated, to my knowledge. Tasks can be restored through the advanced search, projects from the email the project owner would receive. The other objects require you to contact support and provide as many details as possible.

Native & semi-native Solutions to back up

• Theta Lake: Enterprise+ clients get native integrations.

• Google Sheets Sync: Keep certain projects backed up in Google Sheets (mind the data limits).

• CSV Exports: Regularly export individual or full-org CSVs (Enterprise+), but watch for limits.

3rd Party backup solutions

• ProBackup, Rewind, FluentPro, and Unito offer reliable, specialized backups for Asana.

• Custom Solutions on GitHub: Some community members provide scripts and code for custom backup needs.

Key considerations in choosing your backup solution

• Data residency: Where is your backup stored? This is essential for compliance.

• Scope of backup: Ensure comments, attachments, and key project details are included if you need them.

• Cost: the ROI of a back up solution isn’t straightforward to discern.

• Restoration process: Choose a solution that makes it easy to restore exactly what you need.

If you ever decide to leave Asana, the contract says you have 30 days to retrieve your data (with a specific procedure to follow).

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Bastien, Asana Expert
iDO (Asana Partner: Services & Licenses)

[Arthur_BEGOU]

@Bastien_Siebman

A question please
Do you know if some Asana plans allow the export of “all the data”?
Like other tools offer like Facebook and Google?

[Rebekah_Chalkley]

Is there a resource on how to sync to Google Sheets? And a resource on where to look up the data limits?

One of our most painful things to recreate is when a form accidentally gets deleted, because it’s tied to SO many cascading next steps and automations. Is there a way to back up forms so that they can be restored without contacting support? (I’m assuming the Google Sheets option would not include a forms backup.)

[Arthur_BEGOU]

Hi @Rebekah_Chalkley

@Rebekah_Chalkley

Is there a resource on how to sync to Google Sheets?

Yes, on the Asana Help Center Asana Help Center

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@Rebekah_Chalkley

And a resource on where to look up the data limits?

@Richard_Sather

7.4. Limit of 500 rows for syncing to a Google Sheet

Vote here to increase
Asana Help Centre

(all limitations are listed and maintained in that fantastic article: 🔢 List of technical and data limitations in Asana)

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@Rebekah_Chalkley

Is there a way to back up forms so that they can be restored without contacting support? (I’m assuming the Google Sheets option would not include a forms backup.)

No, indeed, the Google Sheets option will save 500 rows of data (corresponding to the answers coming from your form)

I would suggest a few things:

• 1- make sure to protect the project where the form was created (give access only to the right persons)

• 2- make a copy of your project (with the form) and keep it safe

• 3- or create a dedicate project to save all your forms (you can now duplicate a form and send it in another projet)
  

  

• 4- use a shortlink when you communicate your form (like https://bit.ly/), thus, in case the form URL changes, you can still create a redirection

Hope that helps

[Bastien_Siebman]

@Arthur_BEGOU

A question please
Do you know if some Asana plans allow the export of “all the data”?
Like other tools offer like Facebook and Google?

To me, that’s the “org export” feature which is an ENT+ feature. If you have another plan, you need to do project CSV export, a one-time backup in proBackup, use the API…