Just started my day, opened Asana and a card on a board I’m actively using for research. I had linked a google doc file through the built in attachment process and it paused almost 2 full seconds on your servers before finally forwarding to the actual google drive link.
Two (2) seconds doesn’t sound like much unless you are trying to use Asana as part of your work flow and those 2 seconds feels like an eternity.
I don’t understand why Asana is adding an unnecessarily intermediate step to get to my file hosted on another server instead of just directlying linking to the Google Drive file?
https://app.asana.com/app/asana/-/download_asset?asset_id=23850@287572
vs https://docs.google.com/document/d/sdfsdfsdfsdf/ssdfsdf-sdf-sdf-sdf-sdf-/edit
(above links are symbolic only and are not using real file ids)
The only reason I can think of, and I hope I’m wrong, is that Asana is using the intermediate page to gather statistics.
I just double checked and in Trello they are linking directly to the file and there is zero delay (unless it’s on google’s side). And using the same connect to google drive mechanism as Asana.
So why is Asana adding a step to get to my Google Doc file and causing this unnecessarily delay?
Thanks for this thoughtful post @briankb. Our attachment framework is built such that a common attachment object has a download url for its asset. When this url is hit, the server gives it the url of the actual attachment. The hypothesis for why it’s built that way is that it was probably what was initially done for urls for S3 attachments and then carried forward. So, it’s a multi step process as a carry over from other processes we had in place.
Sorry to hear this is causing you unnecessary delay. I hope you’ll feel comforted that I forwarded your question to some of my colleagues at Asana and now several engineers have had an in depth conversation about it! They’ve discussed their philosophies, room for improvement, solutions, and all.
[quote=“briankb, post:1, topic:793”]
I just double checked and in Trello they are linking directly to the file and there is zero delay (unless it’s on google’s side). And using the same connect to google drive mechanism as Asana.
[/quote] you said the “T” word! That sick burn got the engineers talking ha
It would be helpful if the files that were attached from google drive were linked directly to the location in google drive so that we can manage versions etc right there. Currently, the gDrive integration allows you to attach a file from gDrive (but as it’s own file). If I could instead “attach” a file but the original gDrive link was kept in tact, then I can click on the attachment and it opens straight in google drive. This will help with managing versions etc.
This is especially helpful with the new Team Drives on Google.
That sick burn got the engineers talking ha