CSV Importer

CSV Importer allows you to get your data into Asana with no manual mapping. You can name the columns in your spreadsheet with the following labels to automatically map fields in your project:

1. Name: use this column for the names of the tasks in your project.
2. Description: use this column to provide details and context within the task.
3. Assignee: assign one owner to each task by adding the email address of an Asana user from your workspace or organization. Tasks created in Asana can only be assigned to one user.
4. Collaborators: you can add several of your colleagues as collaborators on a task by adding email addresses of valid Asana users from your workspace or organization on a separate column. Take care to separate them with a comma and do not add any spaces in between.
5. Due Date: use the standard US date format of month/day/year to track the due date of each task.
6. Start Date: add a separate column for start dates, an Asana Premium feature. If you do not have a paid subscription, the information in the start date column will appear in the description of your task.
7. Type: set "Milestone” as a value to differentiate milestones from regular tasks in your project.
8. Section/Column: a new section will be created once you manually move tasks into the desired section or column.
9. Other information: additional column information will be listed from top to bottom in the task description field in the order of your columns.

If any column contains incorrect data, such as an email address in the Due Date column, none of the due dates will import correctly. A new text-based field will be created instead.

To import subtasks via the CSV Importer:

1. Create a new column in your spreadsheet called subtask of
2. Fill the subtask of column with the exact name of the parent task in the corresponding row. The parent task should be located above the current row in the CSV file. If there are non-unique names in your CSV, the closest row above with a matching name will be used

To specify dependencies via the CSV Importer:

1. Create a new column in your spreadsheet called Dependents
2. Fill the Dependents column to list tasks that the current row is blocked by

They should correspond to the dependent task names exactly. The dependent task should be located below the blocking task in the CSV file. In the example above, Planning Finished is dependent on both Kickoff meeting and Creative brainstorm. Since both tasks are blocking Planning Finished, Planning Finished is located below rows 2 and 3. If there are non-unique names in your CSV, the closest row above with a matching name will be used.

Importing data via CSV will not update any existing tasks in the project. Therefore, it will not be possible to create a dependency on any existing task by using the CSV importer.

Custom fields can either contain text, numbers or dropdown values. The columns with no matching names to specific Asana fields (like Name or Section, for example) will be mapped as custom fields in the project.

The data in the CSV file can be mapped either to new custom fields or to existing ones in the project:

• New custom fields will automatically be created for new projects imported from the Import spreadsheet option. Those new custom fields will be available only for that project, by default.

• New custom fields will automatically be created in existing projects by importing the CSV file to that project. That will happen when the column name does not match any existing custom fields within that project or in your organization. Those new custom fields will be available only for that project, by default.

• Data will be mapped to existing custom fields in a project or organization if the project was created first. You can use the existing custom fields in that project before importing the CSV file, or match the information in the CSV file to custom fields in your organization.

To import a CSV file to create a new project from a team:

1. On your side bar, click the plus icon next to the name of your team to display the options to Create project
2. Select the Import spreadsheet option

To import a CSV file to create a new project from the Quick Add button:

1. Click the Quick Add button in the top right corner and select Project
2. Once on the Choose a project template modal, click Import spreadsheet

To import a CSV file to add task to a project:

1. Select the project header drop-down menu next to your project's name
2. Hover over Import
3. Choose CSV

After selecting the option to import a spreadsheet or CSV, you will be directed to a modal where you will be able to specify information about your project, like the name or privacy settings:

1. Use the Project name field to give a name to your project
2. Select the team you wish to add the project to
3. Set your project privacy settings by selecting between a project that is public to the entire team you have selected or just to specific project members
4. Click on Select file to import to continue

Once you have specified the name of the project, you will be able to select the file you wish to import.

Click on Select a CSV file to import to select a CSV file from your computer. You can also drag the file from your computer and drop it inside the modal.

You can preview how the project will look, and make changes if you need to before finishing the import of the CSV file:

1. Click on Upload new CSV to get back to the previous screen and select a different CSV file
2. Select the Make changes option if you prefer to edit the information that has been uploaded to your project from the CSV file
3. Click Go to project if you are happy with how your project looks

Click on the column headers to change the field you want to map to.

You can also make changes in the type of custom field. For example, if a column displays numeric values and the type of custom field was set to Number fields, you can change it to Text field.

You can click on the Ignore columns option to ignore columns with data you prefer not to import to your project.

If you are using a different CSV encoding format or a different locale, you can click on the character encoding icon to change the encoding to UTF-8, Windows, Macintosh or Shift JIS.

To get started, use the above as a template to create a spreadsheet and upload it to Asana.